Touma's Busy Day
by Icefriend
Summary: Touma has a really really busy day. A ton of problems occur including; a Kihara trying to kill him, a magician mind controlling Fukiyose, an underground magic cult trying to summon a demon, Kuroko getting kidnapped by her own stalker, an Islamic magic cabal of four beautiful women trying to force him to marry them all, and more. How much misfortune can fit in a single day?
1. 12:00 - 13:00

**Author's Note:** This is a story I've been toying with for a while but kept putting off. Thanks for the AnimeSuki Forum members for helping to end my indecisiveness problem (again). For some reason having Touma have a hellish day filled with misfortune has always seemed like an awesome and funny idea to me. Originally it was going to be a one shot, then a two shot, then a three shot, and now I'm planning on doing 12 chapters. One for each hour, like in 24 (which I've never actually seen). I hope to do really fast updates (I wrote this in a day because I was off) so everybody cross your fingers.

* * *

The worst day of Kamijou Touma's life began at exactly noon, because of nothing more than a casual encounter on a street.

Before that point it wasn't that special of a day. He had woken up in his bathtub like usual, shared a breakfast with Index, cleaned a little, and did some other things. Nothing he did was outside of his normal morning routine. After eating breakfast he spent the rest of the morning watching TV with Index and lazing around the house. It was exactly what was to be expected of a normal high schooler to do on a Saturday morning.

When he went to prepare lunch he had noticed that the supplies in his fridge were running extremely low. While what remained would surely be enough to feed him for a few days it wouldn't last Index even one. Therefore he made Index a quick lunch out of the leftovers and decided that he should run out to the supermarket. He had nothing to do that day so he decided to go to the supermarket that was farther away but was currently having a large sale.

It was on his walk to the supermarket that Touma noticed somebody he knew turn a corner in front of his and begin walking the same direction he was. It was his classmate Seiri Fukiyose, known as the 'Iron Wall' girl by his fellow classmates. Without thinking much about it Touma called out to her. If he had only known that he could have saved her and himself a lot of trouble by not initiating a conversation with her he would have simply let her go on her way. "Fukiyose!" He said as he sped up his walking pace.

"Kamijou?" Fukiyose asked. "What the heck are you doing here?" She asked suspiciously.

"I'm just going to the supermarket." Kamijou said dismissively. Recently Kamijou had been disappearing frequently from school for various reasons, and he had missed out on much of the Ichihanaransai preparations due to a huge incident involving Gremlin. Because of this Fukiyose was obviously more than a little annoyed with him.

Fukiyose gave him a slightly indignant look and started walking. With nothing else to do Kamijou fell into step beside her. "What supermarket are you going to?" She asked him.

"This one here." He said, pointing to a map he was consulting on his cellphone. "It's having a sale today so I'm heading there."

"Really?" Fukiyose asked. "That's not too far from where I live so I suppose I might as well go there too."

Touma nodded and the two of them walked the next few blocks together in silence before Touma said. "Actually Fukiyose, don't you normally only buy those weird health foods? I don't know if this supermarket will have anything like that."

Fukiyose opened her mouth to reply with something else but before she could get any sound out another voice stepped in and cut her off.

"Hello there." A teenage male announced as approached them from the front. He looked around the same age as Touma and Fukiyose and was incredibly attractive. He was a blond foreigner who could easily have been a model or a movie star. He was dressed in designer clothing and walked like he expected people to move out of his way automatically.

When Fukiyose didn't answer him Touma began to panic a little wondering if he had known the man before he had lost his memories. "Hello." He said a little awkwardly.

"It's a pleasure to meet you." The man said, accidentally dispelling Touma's fears. "My name is Edward Smith."

"What do you want?" Fukiyose asked with suspicion. "Are you trying to sell us something?"

The man looked hurt at her remark. "Not at all. I just felt like having a conversation with you…Miss…?"

"Seiri Fukiyose." Fukiyose told him with no small bit of annoyance.

The simple act of Fukiyose sharing her name seemed to give the man far more pleasure than it should have. He smiled widely and for a split second Touma could have sworn that the smile was rather malicious, but at a second glance it was a normal smile. "Thank you. It's always such a pleasure to learn the name of a woman as beautiful as you are." Despite obviously being a foreigner his Japanese was perfectly fluent.

Fukiyose seemed pleased by the compliment although she did not blush shyly like a girl in an anime would have. "Do you always go up and randomly introduce yourself to strangers?" She asked him.

"Of course. How else would I manage to learn the names of so many people?" He laughed loudly at his own joke, but Touma and Fukiyose were only confused by what he found so funny. "So what's your name?" He asked Touma.

"Kamijou." Touma said simply. He started walking again in the hopes that the man would leave to go bother somebody else but the man simply kept following them. He chatted with them as they walked and Touma found him to be rather likeable, charming, and funny. When Touma took a shortcut through an alleyway the man seemed to be oddly pleased.

"What's your full name Kamijou-san?" Edward asked with a reassuring smile. "Where I come from it's considered rude to not tell somebody your full name when meeting them."

Touma felt a little uneasy about the man about the man but he didn't see any harm in replying. "Kamijou Touma." He said.

With those two simple words all of the warmth left the man's face and he started looking at Touma and Fukiyose like they were pieces of meat. "Seiri Fukiyose and Kamijou Touma." He intoned. Fukiyose's eyes glazed over and she stopped walking. She looked wrong. Fukiyose was a woman who was always full of energy, always ready to do something or explode in anger. Now however she merely stood there staring at nothing with a blank look in the eye. For some reason it reminded Touma of the blank stare of one of the Misaka sisters. "Sheesh, Richard wouldn't stop telling me that it would be hard to hunt in Academy City and that I would have to be careful. What a joke. No matter what prey are prey." Edward said. He was not speaking to Touma, merely casually talking to himself. In fact he was paying Touma absolutely no attention at all.

"What the hell did you do?" Touma asked him.

Edward was so surprised by the sound of Touma speaking it took him a second to register that it was in fact Touma who had spoken. "Did you just… speak?" He said incredulously.

"Just answer me." Touma demanded. "What the hell did you do to Fukiyose?"

The man just scowled. "Kamijou Touma." He said. Nothing happened. "Kamijou Touma, Kamijou Touma, _Kamijou Touma_." Every time he said Touma's name he grew more and more frustrated. "What the hell? Did you lie to me about your name or something?"

"Stop talking nonsense! Are you some sort of mind controlling esper!? Or are you a magician!?"

"Tch, so there's people in Academy City who know about magic too huh?"

"Just answer me damn iiiitttttt!" Kamijou shouted. He swung his right fist at the magician and it connected perfectly. The sound of shattering glass filled the air as Touma's Imagine Breaker broke whatever spell the man had been using. Edward went flying backwards and fell to the ground.

"Kamijou Touma!" This time it wasn't Edward saying his name but Fukiyose. Inexplicably she ran in front of Touma and held her arms out in an exaggerated pose to stop him from advancing on Edward. "What the hell are you doing!?"

"Fukiyose!" Touma shouted. He was too relieved to even be upset at her misunderstanding. "Are you okay?"

"Okay? What the hell are you talking about? Why did you suddenly attack Edward?"

"Seiri Fukiyose."

Once again the mere mention of her name was enough to drive all emotion from Fukiyose. She let her arms fall back to her sides and continued her blank stare.

Touma scowled at the sight. "You bastard!" He yelled. He had no idea what group the magician belonged to, or why he was doing this, but he didn't care. All that mattered to Touma was that somebody was suffering in front of him.

"Stop him." Edward commanded.

Fukiyose head butted Touma without hesitation. Her face was no longer emotionless, but full of tranquil fury, like she had looked when he had walked in on her changing during the Daihaseisai. Touma couldn't bring himself to try and hit her back. Mercilessly she continued to rain blows down on Touma, not stopping until an angry voice commanded "Stop." When it did she stopped in mid punch, and held completely still. It was like she had been frozen in time.

"You bastard." Edward said. He stared at Touma with naked contempt. His lip was bleeding from the punch Touma had given him and he was now giving off the impression of an angry child. "Step back." He commanded Fukiyose and she did so wordlessly. He stomped over to Touma and punched him in the face as hard as he could.

Touma ignored the punch. It had been pitifully weak.

His answering punch however wasn't. The spell was once again broken, and Edward spat out blood.

"Gah!" Edward cried out. "Who the hell do you think you are? Do you have any idea who I am!?"

"What the hell is this?" Fukiyose said in confusion. She took one look at Touma and hesitated when she saw the determination in his face. "Kamijou?" She asked. Fukiyose viewed Touma as a lazy unmotivated student, so seeing him fired up must have been very shocking to her.

"Seiri Fukiyose." Edward muttered. He was so angry Touma was surprised it came out so clearly instead of as a snarl. "We're leaving. Follow me." He ordered. Then he glared at Touma and held up his hand. "There's no point in going to too much trouble to get someone like you."

Something invisible shot out of his hand and hit Touma directly in his left leg. Touma's leg collapsed from under him and he lost all feeling in it. For a split second he thought that his spine had been damaged but as soon as he touched his right hand to his leg he was suddenly able to move again. "Screw you!" He shouted at the backs of the fleeing Fukiyose and Edward. "You think I'll just let you get away with this!?"

He ran after them and it quickly became apparent he would catch up to them. Touma wasn't a professional runner but for literally as long as he could remember he had been very good at it. He knew Fukiyose was just as athletic if not more and he might have not been able to catch her but Edward was another story. The man quickly ran out of breath from his sprint and had to drop down to a very slow jog. He had not paced himself like a professional would have, and was suffering for it.

However just before Touma could grab on to Edward and beat the stuffing out of him his misfortune kicked in.

An explosion of pure force appeared directly in between Touma and Edward sending both of them flying in opposite directions. Touma's right hand had been held upwards to grab the taller Edward's neck, so his Imagine Breaker had been unable to stop the sudden explosion.

He hit the ground five meters away and was right back to his feet. Ten meters away Edward was being pulled to his feet by Fukiyose and the two of them scrambled off.

Touma was unable to follow them. His way was blocked by a middle aged male wearing a nice suit. However the suit did not make the man look respectable as he was also covered in tattoos everywhere skin was visible and he had several piercings. He looked at Touma's angry expression and muttered with some amusement "So here you are. I suppose you really are misfortunate."

"Are you working with that guy!?" Touma demanded. Edward and Fukiyose had already left his field of vision and he didn't want to lose them so he had no patience at the moment.

The man shrugged. "No. I don't actually even know who he is. But he was fighting you so… I just thought it would be funny to let him get away."

"You…" Touma growled. He clenched his right fist and charged at the man.

This time multiple explosions occurred at once. Instinctually Touma managed to block the one in front of him with his right hand but that was not the only one. Explosions occurred above him, behind him, and to either side of him as well. Not only could he not block the attacks he couldn't even dodge them. The forces of the simultaneous explosions gave Touma whiplash as they knocked him around like a rag doll.

"Weaknesses." The strange tattooed man said, as if he was idly philosophizing and not beating Touma to a pulp for seemingly no reason. "Everybody has them. Even that odd right hand of yours everyone is always talking about has plenty. I originally wanted to kill you with some guns but it's unexpectedly hard to use them without training. So I just decided it was easier to attack you with multiple people at once. After all you can only block one thing at a time."

The multiple explosions occurred again. This time Touma thrust his hand upwards and blocked that explosion. However he was still thrown around by the remaining four explosions. "Multiple… people?" He coughed out.

"Ah, my compatriots." The man said. "They're hiding in the surrounding buildings. Their attacks can still reach you but this way you can't reach them. Pretty ingenious right? I pride myself on simple solutions to big problems."

"Why are you doing this?" Touma asked. "What the hell kind of excuse can you have to allow Fukiyose to just get captured like that!?"

"Fukiyose? The girl? She seemed to be leaving of her own free will to me. Well it's not like I care. She'll be dead by tomorrow anyways."

"…Dead?" Touma said after a stunned silence.

"Yes."

"Like hell!" Touma shouted. Ignoring his injuries he raised his right hand and once again charged at the man in front of him.

The explosions occurred again but Touma didn't show any sort of hesitation. If he done so just once he would have been destroyed. He reached out with his right hand and destroyed the explosion in front of himself with a gesture. He was still hit by the other explosions of course but this time when he was thrown forward he landed on his feet and didn't stop his charge. His right fist hit the man square in the jaw and the man lost his casual expression.

Touma knew that that shouldn't have worked the way he did. No matter how good his balance was he should have been unable to land smoothly. The explosion that had occurred above him the other two times had for some reason not occurred.

The man with the nice suit and multiple tattoos seemed to have realized it too. "So those damn dogs finally caught up to us huh?"

A loud battle cry came from one of the nearby buildings and a figure jumped from a window and landed in front of Touma. This figure wielding a spear proceeded to attack the man in the suit, who barely managed to dodge it. The figure was about to swing it's spear again when it was suddenly thrown back by an unseen explosion. The entire exchange took about five seconds.

Touma's mind registered that the figure was Itsuwa at the exact moment that her breasts collided with his face and both of them went flying backwards.

"Stop." The man said as Touma and Itsuwa embarrassingly disentangled themselves. "It's too late now. If the Amakusa have already arrived it's not really a pre-emptive strike." He was holding his ear as he spoke, obviously using a spiritual item to communicate with his comrades. "We'll retreat for now."

""Get back here!"" Touma and Itsuwa yelled as one. They both charged at the man but neither of them were able to reach him before he suddenly jumped straight up and vanished in mid-air.

"Flight magic!?" Itwsuwa said. She muttered a spell under her breath but whatever she casted obviously didn't work. "No, that was just a jump." She scolded herself.

"Itsuwa!?" Touma said, finally realizing how odd it was for her to be here. "What are you doing in Academy City? Who were those people?"

Itsuwa looked strangely happy despite having just been in a fight. "It's nice to see you again," She told him as she started breaking up her spear.

"You too… Sorry Itsuwa but I have to go." Touma told her. He couldn't abandon Fukiyose like this. He would have to call anti-skill and have them track the two through security cameras. They didn't believe in magic but it would be simple enough to tell them Edward was a telepathic esper.

"What happened?" She asked, suddenly serious again.

He told her and her face darkened for a while but lit up with understanding when he mentioned how Edward had controlled Fukiyose by saying her name. "So this is where they ran to…" She muttered.

"Ran to?"

"Um… I can't remember their name but it's a very famous story in England. There used to be a very large magic cabal in England that had been around for a few hundred years. There are many stories about the true name of something granting you power over it, and those magicians used that to enslave people. It was a very powerful group with hundreds of members. They even managed to fight off some saints according to some stories."

"Is there really some magic as convenient as just having to say someone's name to enslave them?"

"Apparently the spell requires the exact name, the same way the person in question pronounces it. So they can't just look up names and enslave people like that."

Touma realized that that was why Edward had been so insistent on hearing their names spoken aloud. "So what happened to them?"

"Aqua of the Back. It seems that after he became a member of God's Right Seat he attacked the cabal and left it in ruins. Only a handful of the hundreds of members were able to escape, and all the slaves were freed."

Touma gave a simple nod at that. He had experienced the power of Aqua of the Back himself before. Before the Amakusa had fought with him he had been stronger than a saint, so it was no surprise he could destroy something that even a saint couldn't.

"So these are those handful of people?" Touma asked. "Why are they in Academy City?"

"Possibly because no one would look for them here?" Itsuwa asked. "They are a very unpopular group after all and any other place they appear in they tend to get attacked by the local magic groups."

"Right. I've got to call Anti-Skill to track them."

"That won't work." Itsuwa told him sadly. "Those people are 'predators' who prey on non-magicians so they have long since developed spells to hide themselves from any sort of law enforcement."

"Damn it." Touma cursed. "Are you telling me there's no way to catch up to them?"

Itsuwa smiled at him reassuringly. "Don't worry. We Amakusa's can track them. Although they are very good at hiding from scientific tracing they can't escape from magical tracing. It will slow down our own search but this isn't something that we can just ignore."

"Your own search?" Touma asked.

"Oh," Itsuwa looked embarrassed at realizing she had not yet explained why she was there. "The Amakusa's are in town to stop a group of demon summoners that are intending to summon a demon here in Academy City. Those people we just fought should be from that cabal."

"A demon?" Touma questioned. "Do those really exist?"

"Well… I can't really say for sure whether they do or not, but a more accurate term would be to say they are intending to 'create something like a demon'."

"Create something like a demon…. Like Innocentius or Ellis?"

"Yes, but this should be on a far larger scale than that."

"Why would they do this in Academy City?" Touma questioned.

"It seems that to those magicians Academy City as the centre of the Science Side is the most evil place in the world. Therefore any demon created here will be much stronger."

"What do they want to do with a demon?"

Itsuwa gave an embarrassed shrug. "We don't know… but we doubt it is anything good for Academy City considering how they view it."

"So… why attack me?" Touma questioned. He was beginning to feel like a character from an rpg selecting dialogue options from an npc.

"They must know about your right hand. That could destroy that summoned demon with ease and since we have worked with you before, they must have targeted you in case we did so again."

"Damn it." Kamijou said.

"I'm very sorry." Itsuwa apoligized. "We got you caught up in so much trouble again. It's truly unforgivable."

"It's fine." Touma said dismissively.

Itsuwa didn't seem calmed down by his comment but she didn't bring it back up. "I'm sorry but I have to go and aid with the search. I'll call you if we need your help."

Touma only nodded as she turned and started jogging away from him.

"Such misfortune." He muttered to himself when Itsuwa was out of sight. "How am I supposed to deal with two different magic cabals on the same day?" Kamijou Touma was only one person after all. No matter how hard he tried he could only do one thing at a time. It would be exceedingly difficult for him to manage this.

Then the clock changed to 13:00.

* * *

**Author's Note Continued: **And so Touma's misfortunate day begins. This chapter was filled with action but expect the comedy to start next chapter.

As a side note I use a 12 hour clock but changed it to a 24 hour one for this to avoid any possible confusion.


	2. 13:00 - 14:00

The time was 13:00.

At precisely the second the clock changed from 12:59 to 13:00 Touma was attacked. Something solid hit him in the back and with it came an electrical shock strong enough to force him to the ground. However rather than focusing on the pain Touma was far more confused than anything else. "Mi…saka?" He choked out with his face to the floor. It didn't make sense to him. He had always been able to block Misaka's lightning by instinct before, so why hadn't he felt the urge to move that normally filled him as Misaka prepared her attack?

"By Misaka are you referring to that Railgun of Tokiwadai? Or one of those useless clones she has? Well it doesn't really matter. None of them are here. There is only me." A woman's voice said.

"Wha-?"

"Hmmm, or are you just speaking gibberish? I hope I didn't fry your brain at all. I'm not really used to using offensive weapons, but I decided a taser was the best choice to immobilize you from a distance like this."

"Who… are you?"

"Kihara Nami."

Those words motivated Touma enough to shake off the pain and start to force himself to his feet. In the hell that had been Baggage City, the people sent from Academy City had been known as Kihara's. Although he had never fought one himself the very fact that Academy City had chosen to send them to fight against Gremlin revealed how powerful they were.

"Oh? Maybe I didn't use enough voltage after all." The woman said as Touma pulled himself to his feet. She had long dark hair and wore a lab coat over a red blouse and black pants. Her most striking figure was her eyes, they bulged and shifted constantly, never focusing on the same spot for more than half a second. She was carrying a taser gun in her left hand and had an odd metal sheet in her right that she carried like a shield.

"What do you want with me?" Touma asked. _Is she working with Edward, or those demon summoners?_

"That right hand of yours of course." The woman said. "I just need to cut it off and study it."

"Like hell!" Touma yelled. He couldn't allow that. Whatever this woman's reasons were he had to save Fukiyose and that wouldn't be possible without his right hand. Not to mention that something weird always happened whenever his right hand was cut off. He shifted his center of gravity and charged at the woman with his right fist raised like he had to countless opponents before.

Kihara Nami simply raised up the odd metal sheet to block his punch and as soon as Touma's right hand collided with it he lost.

His senses were wrong. The Kihara woman in front of him shifted and seemed to teleport from place to place. One second she would be in front of him and the other beside him. Sometimes when he looked at his body he didn't see anything at all as if he had become a ghost. Colours shifted constantly; her white lab coat becoming all of the colours of the rainbow one at a time, then all at once, and then most bizarrely becoming no colour at all. Colours shifted through the air around him like a computer screen with a magnet placed on it.

He smelled smoke, then blood, then flowers, then meat, then burnt flesh, then paint, then oil, then leather, then soap, then manure, then copper, then wood, then sweat, then bread, and on and on until he couldn't stand it anymore. He tasted things too but it was never the same thing as what he was smelling.

He couldn't stop hearing footsteps. That was all that he could hear. Thousands of them seemed to surround him like he was in the middle of a marching band. Sometimes they came in patterns but mostly they just hit the ground randomly. He started to wish desperately for the patterns if only so he could have something that was understandable.

His sense of touch was the most disorienting. He couldn't feel any of his surroundings as if he was floating in an endless void. His skin felt like it was crawling with hundreds of ants. He was somehow hot and cold at the same time. His body felt disconnected from himself. His head flung backwards from a blow but he felt the pain in his leg. He raised his arm and even though he _knew_ it was raised he still felt it hanging at his side like he hadn't moved it at all.

Then his sense of touch disappeared entirely and all he could do was take in the changing smells and tastes, hear the footsteps, and see nothing but shifting colours.

When he finally came back to himself the disorientation disappeared immediately like he had woken from a bad dream. He was now laying on the ground staring up at the sky. He tried to move but quickly discovered that his arms and legs were bound to the ground by four metal semi-circles. Although they weren't connected to anything the semi-circles still held onto the ground strong enough that all of his struggling proved useless.

Kihara Nami was on her hands and knees on his right side and was holding a cheap measuring tape roll over his right hand. When she realized that he had come back to his senses she said "There you are. Do you mind telling me where exactly your 'power' stops working?"

"What the hell did you do?" Touma demanded.

"Oh, that? That was my new prototype security device. The Sense and Perception Disruptor, or the SAPD. I'm a Kihara who specializes in creating security devices. With that device all intruders can be stopped completely in their tracks and be utterly unable to fight back. It's coated in a special sticky contact poison that I created. It sticks to the shield without dripping and a single touch is enough to take a person out. I'm very proud of it."

"Oh and you can stop struggling by the way, those handcuffs are my design too. They stick to any surface as soon as somebody touches the centre of the top. It takes that persons finger prints and as soon as they touch it again at that spot it lets the prisoner go. They're nothing special but they were necessary to secure funding. Now, as long as we're sharing secrets would you care to answer my question?"

"It won't work." Touma told her in an attempt to reason with her. "My right hand can't be explained by science." He knew very little about his power, but that was something he was sure of.

"Please don't attempt such an obvious lie." The Kihara Nami said with a sigh. "There is nothing in this world that cannot be explained by science. I would really prefer to do this quickly. This knife I'm using will cauterize your wound immediately afterwards so your life won't be in any danger. I understand you are friends with a few level fives like that Misaka Mikoto and Accelerator. I really don't want to run into them so I don't want to have to drag you away into some dark laboratory and study you like that."

Touma didn't answer her and continued to struggle against the bonds holding him down. They still wouldn't budge. He could explain to her that his hand would grow right back anyways but he really doubted that she would believe that.

"Sheesh don't give me so much trouble. What a pain this is. You're lucky this right hand of yours is so valuable. As soon as I learn how it negates esper powers I'll be able to design all sorts of anti-esper technology. I really wish I could just kill you and be done with it."

"You really shouldn't have said that. Is there any sort of girl who would be happy to hear her fiancé threatened like that?"

Touma turned his head to try and see where the voice had come from but while tied down he couldn't look directly behind him.

Kihara Nami stood up and gave another sigh. "Well that's just great. Who are all of you?"

"We're his fiancés." A different voice responded. "That's all you need to know."

Kihara Nami pulled another taser gun out of her lab coat and pointed it behind Touma. That was the only part of the fight that he was able to make out from his position. The rest of it was nothing but a bunch of yells, the occasional crash, and a ton of smoke that appeared out of nowhere.

"A smoke bomb!? Is she a ninja!?"

"She's gone. Damnit. I'll make her pay for hurting him like that."

"Speaking of him, shouldn't we release him from those bonds now?"

"Yeah, yeah. Sanada you have a spell to unlock things don't you?"

"Yes."

All of the voices were female and they had some sort of accent that Touma couldn't make out. However they seemed to be on his side for some reason so he didn't worry as one of the girls walked over to him and started muttering something while touching one of his bonds. The bonds released and the girl pocketed them into her bag with a slightly satisfied look on her face.

"Thank you." Touma told them as he pushed himself to his feet. The four girls were all Middle Eastern with darker skin than his. "I'm-"

"Kamijou Touma." The girl who had taken off the bonds cut in. "We are already aware of this." Her face was carefully kept blank and she observed him with a cool logic.

"Er- nice to meet you all." He said. He had no idea where they had come from but he was too grateful at the moment to care. "Who are you?"

"Didn't we say so earlier?" One of the women said with a wide and bright smile. Unlike the other girls she was in wearing very revealing clothing, specifically a miniskirt and a very low cut shirt. "We're your fiancés. It's a pleasure to meet you."

Touma just stared at them blankly for a minute.

"Huh?"

"Don't say that so easily Thara." One of the other woman cut in. She was wearing a Hijab around her head, made from a simple piece of cloth, and a long skirt. "I told you I have to agree to the marriage before it's finalized. I'm still deciding!"

Thara grinned at her. "You say that you're not sure but didn't I catch you practicing writing your name as Isra Kamijou earlier?"

Isra blushed. "How did you see that!? No, wait I mean that didn't happen!"

"Oh, now that you mention it I saw Isra looking at a picture of him on her phone earlier." The only woman who had not spoken yet said. She wore simple clothing that one couldn't easily define as 'modest' or 'revealing', and had a very kind smile.

"Shut up!"

"In addition I once saw her excitedly sharing gossip about him with that friend of hers from that small catholic church. She was praising him very highly." Sanada said.

"Sssshhhhuuuuttttttt up!" Isra yelled one final time. "Just be quiet already! I said I haven't decided, so I haven't decided okay!"

"Fiancé?" Touma's confused voice cut into the arguing of the four friends like a hot knife through butter. "What?"

"We want to marry you, Kamijou-san." The kind girl said. "My name is Lana. The blushing one is Isra, Sanada is the one who acts emotionless, and Thara is the very cheerful one."

"Marry me?" Touma's mind couldn't force its way past that simple concept. When had he ever done anything that would lead to this kind of event? He knew for a fact that his misfortune wouldn't allow something like this absurd thing to happen. It had to be a trap somehow.

"Yes." Sananda said simply. "Please allow me to explain. We are an Islamic magic cabal known as The Grace of Allah. We wish to become more powerful. In the Quran it states men are allowed to have four wives at once, and in Islamic magic there are many powerful spells that can only be cast by four women who share the same husband. Therefore we have decided to get married." She said all of it without any shift in tone, saying every individual sentence like she was disinterestedly reading points off of a list.

"Then why me?" This had to be a trap. Touma knew he was a misfortunate person to the bone. Four beautiful women wouldn't offer to marry him unless it was a trap or would somehow lead to him getting terribly injured or even killed.

"We went through many candidates. In the end you were decided upon due to your influence with several members of high standing in the world, both on the Science Side and the Magic Side. In addition you were the first person that Isra did not reject out of hand."

"Don't be ridiculous! What do you mean my influence!? I'm just a normal high school student you know!" Touma shouted at them. "Besides don't you know about my right hand? Any sort of supernatural thing will be canceled as long as it interacts with me so you won't get any source of benefit!"

"This was a major concern." Even in the face of all his shouting Sanada did not lose her perfectly still expression. "However it was eventually argued by Lana that as you do not need to be involved in the casting of the spells there will not be a problem. As long as we all bear the title 'married to Kamijou Touma' that will be enough for the spells to work."

"Stop talking about this like it's so normal! Marrying multiple wives is illegal you know! Stop living in the past!"

"It is true that polygamy has become increasingly unpopular nowadays, however this is not relevant-"

"It's totally relevant! Besides what the heck do you need to become so powerful for anyways!?"

His time it was Lana that answered. "Our country is currently undergoing very much political unrest. It will soon turn to violence." She looked at him with the most pure eyes Touma had ever seen and asked "Will you please help us?"

Kamijou Touma had helped a lot of people in his life. For various reasons he had jumped into all sorts of hells to rescue people who needed it. As long as somebody said 'help' he would do so. However…

"Like hell! That would mean a war right!? It definitely means a war! My Imagine Breaker will be of no help and my misfortune will undoubtedly get me killed!" Yes, now Kamijou Touma understood what this marriage would mean. It would not lead to a life of lounging around and spending his days with four beautiful women. It would mean nothing but war and death. He had run into World War III before, but in that his opponent had only been Fiamma, not a whole country.

"Can we have the marriage right away?" Thara asked him. "I'm really looking forward to- where are you going!?"

It was too late. Touma had already gained a very generous lead on them. "I refuse!" He shouted back at them as he turned into a random alley.

Touma spent the next five minutes taking random turns, cutting down random alleyways, and jumping over random fences to throw off any possible search.

Eventually he ran out of breath and sat down on a nearby bench while panting. He had only been running for a few minutes but just before that he had been chasing Edward and Fukiyose, fighting those demon summoners, and fighting Kihara Nami. All of that had added up rather quickly.

He checked the clock on his phone while he rested. It was only 13:19. The fight with the Kihara had only taken him around ten minutes. It had felt like it had taken hours. Whatever that contact poison had been must have messed with his sense of time as well. He felt like throwing up just thinking about it.

Touma closed his eyes in an attempt to relax. He still had the name magicians and the demon summoning magicians to deal with but at least for now he could catch his breath. He was still worried sick about Fukiyose but Itsuwa was tracking her down and he trusted her. There was nothing he could do at the moment so right now at least he could have a little peace.

"Help me!"

Those two words pulled Touma away from his rest immediately. He opened his eyes to see none other than Misaka Mikoto the #3 level five and ace of Tokiwadai standing in front of him. He stood up.

"Let's go."

Misaka nodded enthusiastically at him and started running down the street. Touma followed her as close as he could. "What's wrong?" He asked.

"Kuroko." Misaks told him without breaking stride. "She's gone. Somebody took her."

"Shirai? Can't she just teleport herself out of there?"

"No. The opponent is an esper that controls water. He's a level four so he's able to control the water in the human body. If she tried to teleport he would just force the moisture in her body to stay behind and she would die."

"Damnit." Touma swore. It was never simple. He couldn't imagine the pain of dying that way. "Can't you call Anti-Skill?"

Misaka frowned. "I did. Halfway through the conversation the man just hung up on me. I've got a friend in Judgment but even she can't get any sort of response from them. It's like what happened on September 30th."

Touma gulped. That didn't sound good. On September 30th an incredibly powerful magician known as Vento of the Front had arrived and taken out most of Anti-Skill singlehanded with her Divine Punishment spell. Just what was going on in this city today? Was it those name magicians, those demon summoners, or something else entirely?

They ran the rest of the way in stoic silence until they arrived at an apartment building. It hadn't been that far away from where Touma was resting and they were able to run the entire way. From Misaka's friend in Judgment, somebody named Uiharu Kazari, they had learned that the kidnapper owned and lived in the penthouse that covered the entire first floor. Neither Misaka nor her friend knew why somebody that well off would need to resort to kidnapping.

"Misaka." Touma said when they finally stood outside the penthouse door. "Let me sneak in and grab Kuroko. When I grab onto her that bastard should be unable to mess with the moisture in her body."

"Do you think I can just sit here?" Misaka demanded. "Kuroko is my friend."

"If you sneak in too it just increases the chances that we will be caught. We need to be stealthy. Trust me Misaka."

For some odd reason Misaka blushed a little at his words and opened the electronic lock on the man's door without any further protest. "Just hurry up, idiot." She told him.

Touma gave her a reassuring nod and slipped into the penthouse. He was standing in a long hallway with several closed doors in it and he could hear passionate arguing coming from the door at the far end. Slowly he started creeping his way towards the sound of the noise.

Very quickly Touma noticed something very odd about the penthouse. There was a ridiculous amount of water in it. All over the hallway there were desks with fish tanks sitting on top of them that were filled to the top. None of the tanks had any fish in them, or even any sort of decoration, just water. The man was prepared.

When he reached the end of the doorway Touma cracked open the very heavy door just enough to peek through at the room. The first thing he registered was Kuroko tied down to a chair by heavy pieces of rope. There was a blindfold over her eyes. A teenaged boy around his own age stood in front of her, therefore facing away from the door. Now that he had the heavy door open Touma could make out what he was saying.

"Stop pretending you don't love me! It's not going to work. I understand that you're nervous, this is a big step in our relationship, but this was meant to be."

"I have no relationship with you!" Kuroko hotly denied. "I don't even know who you are. I only love my Onee-sama."

Touma pushed the door open the rest of the way and as slowly as he could started to creep towards the man. They were at the very far end of the room and several couches stood in the way of Touma's path. Luckily the man was obviously too focused on his argument to pay attention to the small noises Touma couldn't help but give off.

"That woman! That damn woman! What is she doing to you, huh? Is she blackmailing you? Threatening you? What is she doing to you to make you deny your feelings for me!?"

"Don't you dare talk about Onee-sama that way! I love her! A damn kidnapper like you would never understand!"

"How many times to I have to tell you Kuroko? I didn't kidnap you. I'm _saving_ you. You and I were _meant_ to be together and if that damn woman wasn't here then you would see that."

"I don't love you! I don't even know who you are!"

"DON'T SAY THAT! You love me! Don't you remember when you-"

Whatever he had meant to say next was cut off when Touma punched him in the back of his head. "MISAKA!" He yelled at the top of his lungs. He grabbed Kuroko with his right hand before the man could recover from the blow and ripped off her blindfold with his left.

"What are you doing here!?" Kuroko yelled at him.

"Another man?" The kidnapper was staring at them in horror. "Another man? Kuroko… you… you wouldn't right? You love _me._ I won't let you crush my heart like this!" With an exaggerated gesture the man raised his hand and held it out like he was squeezing on a ball.

Nothing happened. Whatever the man had been trying to do to Kuroko was stopped in its tracks by Touma's right hand.

"You- you- die you bastard!" The man screamed at the top of his lungs. The fish tanks that were closest to the man exploded and the water rose to surround him. "I'll make you pay for trying to get in the way of our love!"

"It's alright if I step in now right?" Misaka asked.

The kidnapper stopped in his tracks and turned to stare at Misaka. "You… you're the number three right?" Unlike most enemies who realized who Misaka was this man actually sounded excited. "That's great! It's great that you're here! Here I can beat you! I have this entire place covered in water from head to toe, all in strategic positions! Water flows in pipes below and above here directly! Here even something like the power of a level five couldn't stop me! Prepare to suffer for trying to confuse my precious Kurokoooooo!"

Touma didn't even bother to watch as Misaka thrashed the man in front of her. That was what it meant to be one of the monsters known as a level five. Even here where the man had likely spent weeks preparing the battle ground it was still no contest. A level five couldn't be stopped by something as simple as preparation.

"Are you alright Kuroko?" Misaka asked when the kidnapper was a twitching pile on the ground.

"Onee-sama!" Kuroko shouted. Touma let go of her and she teleported out of the ropes to stand right beside Misaka. Then she threw herself into Misaka's embrace. "Thank you Onee-sama! I was so scared!"

"Kuroko…" Misaka said with concern. "Did he hurt you?"

"No Onee-sama, but I was so sacred! That you so much for saving me with your soft breasts and-"

"Kuroko!"

"I'm sorry Onee-sama! Kuroko is just so happy to be alive and able to be in Onee-sama's warm and soft embrace."

"Kuroko! Stop saying it like that damn it! And let go of me already!" Sparks started to fly from Misaka as Kuroko resisted her attempts to push her away.

Touma decided it would be best to get out of there before things started getting weird. He tiptoed around the two of them and was out the door before either of them could notice.

Back out on the street Touma was about to just return home for now when he saw an Anti-Skill member walking towards the building. It was a huge relief. He had been scared that something else had been going on major enough to take up the entire Anti-Skill force "Hey! Anti-Skill!" He called out.

The Anti-Skill member didn't respond. Touma noticed that he was walking unnaturally, swaying back and forth like a zombie in a movie.

Touma ran the rest of the distance to the man and asked "Are you alright?"

The Anti-Skill agent only seemed to notice that he was there when he spoke, despite having been looking right at him. He wasn't like Fukiyose. Fukiyose had had a blank look in her eye and had only moved to follow the orders of Edward. This man seemed panicked, like he was running away from something, even though he was completely unharmed. Slowly, very slowly, the man seemed to realize that he needed to give a response.

"Discordianism."

After he said that one word fire shot from the man's forehead. It wasn't aimed at Touma but at the ground. The force of it shook the ground and formed a crater. Touma was blasted off of his feet.

"What the hell!?" Touma shouted.

The Anti-Skill didn't even seem to realize he had almost killed Touma. He still looked panicked. Then out of nowhere he gave a ferocious roar and fire shot out of his forehead again and again, ripping out the concrete below him.

It was magic. Regular fires produced by espers couldn't leave craters in the concrete. There must be some sort of force mixed in.

"Another damn magician!?"

The man wasn't trying to hurt Touma. In fact he didn't seem to be trying to hit anybody. He was just lashing out around himself for seemingly no reason. He continued to roar challenges at nobody and rage had replaced his panic.

Touma raised his right fist and this time when the fire shot out of the man's forehead he smacked it aside. This however did nothing but piss the man off even more and then fire started flowing out of him in a continuous stream, now coming from all over his head and surrounding him in a circle of fire.

"Damn it!" It was incredibly hard to move across the torn up ground and he could easily die in that fire, but still Touma raised his right fist. The man was surrounded by fire and he would soon die from a simple lack of oxygen.

"Cut this damn thing out already!" Touma screamed as he charged across the uneven terrain. His right fist collided with the fire flowing from the man's forehead and without hesitation Touma pushed himself further until his punch hit the man right between his eyes.

The Anti-Skill member tripped himself on the broken up sidewalk he had created as he stepped backwards from the force of Touma's punch. The fire had stopped flowing from the man as soon as Touma's right hand had connected to him.

To Touma's surprise the first words out of the man's mouth were "What the hell? What just happened?" He was talking like a normal person again. "What happened to the road?" He turned to focus his attention on Touma. "Who did this?" He demanded in a very official tone.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Touma demanded. "You did this!"

"Me? Don't be ridiculous. I'm not an esper. How the hell could I tear up a street like this with nothing but a pistol!?"

Touma just stared at the man. The man had no idea what had just happened. He must have been being controlled. By Edward? No Edward would have no way of making the man do magic. Itsuwa would have mentioned that.

_What the hell is going on?_

Then the time changed to 14:00.


	3. 14:00 - 15:00

**Author's Note:** You may notice that this chapter is shorter than the last one. In this fic I won't be doing any sort of standard length per chapter aside from a 3k minimum. Some chapters Touma will be really _really_ busy and some chapters he will only be really busy.

* * *

Touma backed away from the Anti-Skill officer who still hadn't picked himself off the floor. Soon enough the man would start to wonder if Touma was the one who had caused the destruction, and Touma didn't have the time to deal with that right now. Especially since whatever was happening to the Anti-Skill organization would undoubtedly mean plenty of delays in the process of clearing his name.

His phone rang as soon as he had gotten out of sight of the Anti-Skill officer. Almost like the phone call had been planned to stop him from getting even the slightest bit of rest. "Hello?" He asked.

"Hello." Itsuwa's voice answered. There was a loud thrumming noise in the background, like a motor.

"Huh? Itsuwa? When did you get my number?"

For some reason Itsuwa was silent for a few seconds after he asked that. "That Tsuchimikado gave it to me. For emergencies." Her voice was oddly nervous.

Touma sighed. Giving away his number to random people was exactly something that Tsuchimikado would do. Although now that he thought about it he couldn't remember Tsuchimikado and Itsuwa ever being friendly with each other. In fact during the incident in Avignon Itsuwa had made it clear she had no idea who Tsuchimikado was. In the end he decided to let it go, it wasn't like he could ask Tsuchimikado anymore.

"What's going on?" He asked.

"I found those name magicians." Itsuwa said.

"Where!?"

"I can pick you up and take you there." Itsuwa told him. "Please send me your GPS coordinates."

Touma did so. For the next few minutes all that he could do was stand there and worry but soon enough Itsuwa was there. On a motorcycle, the same kind as the one she had rented during the Aqua of the Back incident. Without a need for words Touma climbed onto the back of the motorcycle and held onto Itsuwa as tightly as he could without hurting her. He didn't have a helmet and therefore was far more nervous about falling off than he had been last time.

They arrived at the hideout of the name magicians after about twenty minutes of driving through the city. He referred to it as a hideout but it looked more like an embassy or an estate than anything else. It was a large building surrounded by walls and a manned gate. There were guards standing around outside armed with heavy automatic rifles. All of them had the same blank look in their eye that Fukiyose did.

"What is your purpose here?" One of the guard asked in a monotone voice.

"I'm here to get back Fukiyose." Touma spat at him.

"To take up issues concerning recent captures you must speak with our leader Richard Smith. Is this acceptable?" He was completely and utterly uncaring about the situation, as if he was a computer.

"Yes." Itsuwa said. The guard nodded and motioned to the others. The gate opened and he started leading them inside.

Along the way Touma took a long look at the guard. He was obviously being controlled just as Fukiyose had been. He had been able to break the spell on her by hitting Edward so to save the guard he should just have to reach out and-

Itsuwa grabbed his hand out of the air before he could touch the guard. "You can't." She whispered. "The other guards will attack us and we'll never get your friend out."

Touma glared at her for a second before having to admit that she was right. "Damn it." He cursed. "I'll save you." He promised the guard. "I'll get you out of here so just hold on."

The guard gave him no response. If he had even heard him.

The inside of the hideout was far more decorated and lively than the wall and gate had been. Touma saw kids running through the yard, chasing each other and playing. On the porch two women who were obviously quite close were laughing companionably. An old woman was resting on a rocking chair beneath a huge tree. A young couple were embracing in the garden. They all looked like normal and happy people.

Below that surface however was the horrible truth. There were three people wandering around in pure white clothing. One of them was a woman and the other two were men. They had the same empty look in their eyes that Fukiyose and the guards had. They wore white robes that were so thin they were partially see through and were obviously wearing nothing underneath them. They were bringing beverages to the people enjoying themselves, and in return being ignored like they were pieces of furniture. These were the slaves.

Touma had to resist the urge to punch the two woman enjoying themselves on the porch while treating the man offering them drinks like he wasn't even there. In return for his restraint he let himself glare at them, which only made them act indignant.

Inside the house another servant in the white partially see through robes was waiting for them. "The lord will see you now." He informed them, as expressionless as the rest of them. Without another word the guard returned to the gate and the servant led them deeper into the building.

The large room they arrived at could only be called a throne room. A large raised platform stood at the end of the room with a massive throne upon in. Everything else in the room was centered around the throne. An old impressive looking man sat in it, dressed in rich clothing that looked like something a king would wear in a movie. He stared at Touma as he entered and Touma could feel the hairs on the back of his neck rising just from the look he gave him. Were he living in the past Touma would have assumed that he was a king in truth.

"Summon Edward." He said to the servant in an angry tone. "Now. What business do you have here?" His voice boomed through the room.

"I'm here to get my friend back!" Touma shouted at him.

"Your friend. The woman known as Seiri Fukiyose?" It wasn't really a question. "She is here."

He made a gesture and a woman walked out from behind a pillar. Fukiyose. She was wearing one of the white slightly see through robes and still had the blank look in her eye, but she looked unharmed. "Fukiyose!" Touma shouted at her. When she didn't answer he turned an accusing stare onto the old man on the throne. "What have you done to her?"

"Do not take that tone with me." Although the words were something a scolding teacher would say to a child, they came off as a threat when the old man spoke them. "Nothing has been done to her and she has been used to no purpose. As has been our custom of late, she has been set aside for a day before being put to use in case any organizations claim previous ownership of her."

"She's a person." Touma couldn't help but growl. "Stop talking about her like a damn possession!"

The old man was about to respond when the door opened again and Edward strolled in looking annoyed. "What the hell is going on now Richard?"

"You shall address me as 'my lord' or 'grandfather'." The old man informed him, sounding like he had done it countless times before.

Edward scowled and nodded his head. He glared at Touma but didn't say anything.

"Now." Richard said from his throne. "You had informed me that there would be no issue with the slave that you took. The one that you took despite my express orders not to go out hunting."

"There isn't." Edward shouted. "This guy isn't a magician, he's just another esper."

"An esper who somehow managed to trace us here despite our spell to ward them off?" Richard asked.

"…What the hell does it matter!?" Edward demanded. "We're the damn hunters here, not them! If I want to take a slave then I can! We're living in poverty here! We've been in this city a week and we don't even have twenty slaves! You call_ this_ us returning to our past glory!? I'm the damn prince and I didn't even have a personal servant until I went out and got it myself!"

"You _dare_? You _dare_ to break my rules and insult me to my face in front of our guests?" He didn't raise his voice but Touma could feel the room shake from the force of his words.

Edward wilted under his stare and didn't respond.

Richard turned his gaze upon Touma. "For our stealing of a person under your possession, we apologize. In return we shall offer a suitable repayment."

"…Repayment? Don't screw with me! Just give me Fukiyose back!"

"Unfortunately, despite my grandson's unprofessional way of gaining possession of this woman, she is now the property of our cabal. To let her go would damage our honour in a way beyond repair."

"Do you think I care?" Touma asked, genuinely bewildered. "What the hell do I care about your honour? Do you think I'd let you enslave Fukiyose for something as stupid as that?"

"In the past I would have killed you on the spot for saying something like that to me." Richard replied. He was scowling but he stroked his small white beard in thought. "However because of recent… developments… I will allow you to live. Perhaps an arrangement may be reached?"

"An arrangement?" Itsuwa asked with suspicion. She gave Touma a warning glance as a subtle way to tell him not to accept it immediately.

"A wager to be more precise."

"What kind of wager my lord?" Unlike Touma she was perfectly polite despite the man's outrageous words. This was undoubtedly the Amakusa's skill at 'blending in' taking shape. "What are the stakes?"

"You, boy, against this woman you wish to retrieve. There shall be a duel between my grandson and you boy. If you win this woman shall be yours. If my son Edward defeats you then you shall become ours."

"No!" Edward cut in. "Grandfather do not do this!"

"Did something I say give you the opinion that you have a choice in this discussion _boy_?"

"He can't be enslaved." Edward said stubbornly. "I used the spell on him many times. He has some sort of defense."

"Does he?" He stroked his beard some more. "…Then it shall have to be her. This other girl. You shall wager her."

"Of course not!" Touma yelled at the same time Itsuwa said "Deal."

"Grandfather!" Edward cut in for the second time. "How do we know that she does not have the same defense he does?"

"I imagine that if the defense was something he could teach then he would done so to this girl he is here for. Now be silent, if you interrupt me again I shall have you beaten." He turned his gaze over to Fukiyose. "Return to the chamber assigned to you. Inform the others to bring you food." He looked to Touma. "As a show of good faith she will of course not be harmed in any way or made to serve. The duel shall be at 19:00. You are dismissed."

When he said those words it was like Touma and Itsuwa had ceased to exist in his eyes. They shared a glance and left.

Touma was still glaring when Itsuwa and he finally got out of earshot of the guards. "I can't ask you to do that Itsuwa." He said.

"It's fine." Despite the risk there was no fear in her eyes. "I trust you." She smiled at him and it made his face grow a little hot.

Then she got on her motorcycle and left to wherever the Amakusa were staying. Leaving him alone with nothing to do but worry about Fukiyose.

"Kamijou Touma!" A girl shouted out of the blue. "I have come to have my revenge!"

Touma just sighed and started walking away.

"Wha- Hey! Don't ignore me!"

A stream of fire flew over Touma's shoulder. He sighed again and turned back around. "And? Who are you?"

"Aha, don't think you can escape me so easily!" The girl yelled at him. She looked about a year younger than him and had long dark brown hair. She wore a sailer uniform that didn't fit her very well. "I have hunted you for a long time Kamijou Touma. Ever since that day that you destroyed my brothers plans I have been tracking you! All of that effort has finally paid off! Fear for your life, for I am Sarah Stone, sister of Jeffery Stone!"

"…Who?" Touma deadpanned.

The magician went white with shock. "Huh?"

"Who is that?"

"Don't give me that! Jeffery Stone! My brother is Jeffery Stone!"

"Um… I'm sorry but I have no idea who that is."

"Jeffery Stone! The magician! The one you defeated!"

"…You're going to need to narrow it down a little bit for me." Touma said.

"In August! It happened in August!"

"…A little more."

"The! End! Of! August!"

"…Just a _little_ more."

The strange girl laughed hollowly. "Heh. Heh. Heh. So you think that you can just forget about my precious brother! Kamijoouuuuuu Touuuummmmmaaaaa!" Fire shot out from her hands and formed into a sword. She charged at him with it like it was a spear, yelling "This is my ultimate Weapon Kamijou Touma! A sword made of pure fire!"

"Well here's Imagine Breaker." Touma said.

The sword touched Touma's raised right hand and instantly broke into pieces. Then the girl tripped out of pure surprise.

"So that was it huh? That was the power you used to ruin my brother's work huh? Don't think I'll let that happen twice!"

It did.

"…Can I go now?" Touma asked her hunched over form.

He got no response, and he could see that she was crying cutely. He decided to take that as a yes.

"Geez today is really such a misfortunate day." He muttered to himself as he walked aimlessly through the city. "I really hope nothing else-"

His misfortune didn't even let him finish the sentence before it struck again.

Three members of Anti-Skill were shuffling through the city streets. They looked panicked and were not paying any attention to where they were walking. Every so often one of them would bump into the people around them, and not respond when the person tried to tell them to watch out.

"Damn it." Touma said for the hundredth time that day. If these were like the other Anti-Skill member had been then the people around them would be slaughtered. In order to prevent that fate Kamijou Touma clenched his right fist and charged towards the cursed Anti-Skill members.

It was too late.

"Discordianism."

"Discordianism."

"Discordianism."

All three of the Anti-Skill members uttered that one word, one by one.

"Run away!" Touma shouted. "Get away from those Anti-Skill members!"

Nobody listened to him of course. It would be odd to listen to a person shouting at you to move away from a police officer. Nine times out of ten that person would prove to be a criminal.

As one the three Anti-Skill members started lashing out at anything around them. The first, a male stomped the ground repeatedly and the ground shook. The second, a female, held her hands together like she was praying and caused lights to shoot out of her hands. They didn't seem to be anything more than lights but they certainly scared the crowd around them.

Those two weren't what Kamijou was afraid of however. He was afraid of what the third female in the group was doing. Her hands were stuck straight up into the air and above her the air was starting to form together into a giant tornado that would soon be unleashed onto the helpless civilians, who were now finally fleeing for their lives.

If Touma didn't have to struggle against the fleeing crowd he might have managed to get there before she unleashed it.

She struck her hands forwards and the tornado was unleashed, sucking everything around it towards itself. Soon it would kill everybody around them and over the course of it's rampage it would kill countless more. He doubted that anybody in the city would be prepared to get away from a magic tornado.

"Like I would let that happen!" Touma shouted at the sky. The tornado grabbed him and pulled him towards itself and he didn't even try to resist. It hurt like hell but he kept his right hand raised and just before he was ripped to pieces his right hand collided with the tornado and broke it apart. He fell and hit the ground hard.

A strange light flew from one of the Anti-Skill women and hit him. It didn't do anything but disorient him a little, and after what Kihara Nami had done to him it barely even registered. The man's continued stomping on the ground was far harder to deal with. It shook the ground beneath him and happened without any sort of pattern he could rely on.

"Sorry!" He yelled at them. "I don't have the time to go easy on you!" The woman was forming another tornado and before long she would unleash it again.

His right fist collided with her face as he punched her without any time for mercy. The man stomping his foot went down next, and he stopped the woman creating the disorienting lights with a simple touch.

The street that had been a hell of screaming civilians, shaking ground, and tornados just a few seconds ago was now peaceful.

Touma got out of there before any of the Anti-Skill could become oriented enough to ask him who he was and what he was doing. It wasn't very hard to pretend to be part of the fleeing crowd.

"What the hell is happening today?" He said to nobody in particular.

"Attention. This is a breaking news special report." The sound came from a television sitting in the window of a store. A woman sat at a desk wearing a suit and holding some files that she barely even seemed to glance at. "I am hereby issuing a broadcast warning across all of Academy City. All citizens are to return to their homes. All Anti-Skill across the city are to be avoided. Repeat all Anti-Skill are to be avoided. We do not know if Academy City has been infiltrated by people pretending to be Anti-Skill members or if many members of Anti-Skill have gone rogue. However it is an undeniable fact that across the city Anti-Skill are attacking random civilians and doing massive amounts of property damage. Anti-Skill leaders cannot be reached for comment. I repeat all citizens are to return to their homes until the situation has been taken care of. I repeat all-"

The station cut off there and turned into static.

As the people around him started to panic Touma pulled out his phone. Normally he would call Tsuchimikado but that was no longer an option. "Itsuwa!" He yelled when she answered the phone. "Do you know what's happening here? To the Anti-Skill!?"

"No." She said regretfully. "All of our resources are being used to hunt down the demon summoners. We barely even had the resources to track down those name magicians."

Touma swore loudly. Normally the people around him would have glared at him but most people around him were doing the exact same thing. "I'll see you later then Itsuwa." He told her and hung up.

He scowled as he looked around the city. What he had seen was happening all over the city. People everywhere could suddenly face life threatening danger at any minute, without any warning. He didn't even know what kind of danger it would be as all of the cursed Anti-Skilled members had been doing something different.

To make it all worse the Academy City emergency broadcast station had been cut off. That meant only the people lucky enough to be around a television would know enough to go home and hide.

And everybody else would naturally turn to the Anti-Skills to protect them as soon as they faced any sort of danger. Then they would be cut down with ease.

The time changed to 15:00.


	4. 15:00 - 16:00

**Author's Note: **Well this update took longer than usual. I did not have a computer and/or internet access for a while so it was impossible for me to write. It shouldn't take this long between updates again unless I get really busy.

* * *

"Hello Kamijou-san." A bright and cheerful voice said from behind him. When Touma turned around he saw that it belonged to a blonde busty girl wearing a Tokiwadai Middle School outfit.

"Hello." He said a little awkwardly as he tried to place a name to the face. "Shokuhou Misaki right?" He had seen her only once before, when she had run into Misaka and him at the Daihasesai. Then he had met her, or rather someone being controlled by her, when she had helped him after Tsuchimikado had snuck him into the School Garden as a distraction. That had only been a short time ago but as she had been controlling somebody else's body at the time he thought it was excusable that he didn't immediately recognise her.

She didn't answer him and instead ran over to him and grabbed his arm, then proceeded to press herself up against him. "What are you doing, Kamijou-san? Why do you have that worried expression on your face?"

"…You should leave." Touma told her. "Something bad is going on with Anti-Skill right now. You should return to the School Garden."

She gave him a relaxed smile. "I'm a level five you know? My power isn't as combat-oriented as that tomboy Misaka-san's but I'm still powerful enough not to have to worry."

"What's with that carefree attitude?" Kamijou deadpanned. "I just don't want you to get hurt."

He had meant it innocently. He fervently believed that if he pushed himself far enough that he would be able to send everybody home with a smile on their faces regardless of what side they were on. When he had told her he didn't want her to get hurt he had meant he didn't want anybody to get hurt. It sounded like something a hero would say to his love interest in a movie, but Kamijou would say that to anybody.

Misaki seemed to take it differently. "How sweet Kamijou-san ." She said. She slipped both of her arms around him and embraced him tightly.

Touma blushed as his body reacted to how close she was. "What are you doing!?" He demanded.

"I just enjoy being close to you." Misaki said easily. "Is that so wrong?"

"It's wrong! It's definitely wrong!"

"Oh? So you want me to stop?" She grabbed hold of his arms and pulled them around herself so that he was embracing her back. For some reason he didn't pull back. She loosened her grip a little and looked up at him. Her lips looked incredibly inviting.

"Yes!" He lied badly. Before everything else Touma was a teenage boy. Of course he would be excited from being this close to a beautiful girl, especially one who was so obviously willing. However he just had too much going on to be able to afford this sort of luxury right now. There were a dozen problems he had to solve by the end of the day, and dallying with this girl could mean he was too late to save anyone.

"Your mouth says yes but your-"

"Ah!" Touma yelled. He pushed her away in panic and turned bright red. "I- I have to go!"

She grabbed onto his arm and didn't let go. "At least explain what's going on." She asked. "If you do I promise to reward you ."

"I don't need that kind of encouragement! And you don't need to press yourself against me!"

"Didn't you already see me changing earlier? Is this really a big deal compared to that?"

"That wasn't you! You were controlling somebody else's body! Do you know how guilty I feel for accidentally seeing that!?"

Misaki laughed and pulled a remote control out of her bag. She pressed a button and the crowd that had been gathering around them from the spectacle all walked away. "So?" She asked, finally serious. "What's going on? What's so dangerous that you're telling a level 5 to go home and hide?"

So Touma told her. He explained in complete detail exactly what had happened. The odd behaviour of the Anti-Skill agents before it started, how they all muttered that same word 'Discordianism', and how what they had cast was undoubtedly magic. It was obvious she didn't fully understand what he meant by magic but just like she had in the school garden, she accepted it with ease.

"So basically the Anti-Skill can no longer be trusted?" She summarized. "Do you know if it's the entire organization that's wiped out or just some of them and their communication lines?"

"I have no idea." Touma admitted honestly. "I'm going to have to figure out a solution while assuming that all of them are affected. If I don't it would be far too easy for me to be suddenly attacked"

Misaki's phone rang. "Just a moment." She said. She finally let go of him and Touma breathed a sigh of relief. "What is it ?" She greeted the person on the other end of the phone. Touma of course couldn't hear what whoever it was said, but whatever it was made Misaki appear visibly scared. "I see." She said. "I'll take care of it somehow."

"What is it?" Touma asked.

"Just a minor problem." Misaki said. "I'm sorry but I have to leave and go take care of it."

"What happened?" Touma asked resolutely. "Are you in danger?"

Misaki gave him a wide grin. "It's nothing that serious. I appreciate you being worried about me though. Here's a reward ." Before Touma could react she ran up to him and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

Then she was gone. It might have just been Touma's imagination but he thought that she looked more afraid than she was letting on.

In any other situation he would have unhesitatingly ran after her to find out what was wrong, however he was not allowed that luxury.

Kihara Nami walked across the street that Misaki had emptied of people with her power. In one hand she held up that odd metal square sheet that had caused Touma to lose himself in a hallucination. In the other she was holding an antique stop watch that she kept glancing at. Her walk was utterly relaxed and she stopped about ten meters in front of Touma without saying anything or making any motion that made him think she was about to attack him.

Her clothing was ripped up and Touma guessed it was from her fight with the Islamic magic cabal that had saved Touma from her. She had a bandage over a spot just above her left knee but she hadn't walked with a limp. The rips in her clothing didn't look fashionable or sexy like they might in an anime, but instead made her look ragged. The only part of her that was untouched was her long black hair which was just as smooth as it had been before with not a single hair out of place.

"What do you want?" Touma asked although he already knew the answer.

"Your right hand obviously." Now she wasn't looking at him at all, merely staring at her old stopwatch.

"Then why are you just standing there?"

"I scheduled in this attack for 15:15."

That made Touma pause. "You mean you're just going to stand there until exactly 15:15?" A quick glance at his phone showed that it was currently 15:13.

"Of course." She sounded confused by the question.

Touma turned around and sprinted away without saying another word. If he had had more than two minutes he would have tried to run away but he did not. So instead he tried a different strategy. At the very end of the street was a clothing store and that was his destination. Kihara Nami was following him but obviously not with any passion.

His time ran out as soon as he ran into the door. The store window crashed open as he entered and he had to hide behind the door to avoid getting cut to pieces by the falling glass.

Then he made the mistake of looking to see what Kihara Nami had thrown through the window. It was a flash grenade. It went off with him staring at it and both blinded and deafened him. He cursed, although he couldn't even hear his own voice, and ran into the store wildly. He quickly ran headfirst into a display and tripped over it. After that he was forced to scramble on his hands and knees for what he hoped was a hiding place.

His vision cleared up before his hearing did, just in time for him to see Kihara Nami aim a taser carefully at him. He rolled away just in time to avoid it, and pushed himself to his feet. His deafness was beginning to clear up and he could hear Kihara Nami talking to him although he could not make out the words.

Even though he could have he didn't attack. He still had that metal shield to deal with and he really didn't want to have to go through that hallucination again. Especially since this time he might wake up short an arm. He had come to this store with a plan and he intended to carry it out.

Touma grabbed a handful of clothes and threw them at Nami without even looking to see if they hit. He could see his target now and he ran towards it like it was an oasis and he was in the desert.

Nami's second shot hit him in the back when he was just precious seconds away from his target. He tried to keep going but his muscles involuntarily seized up and he collapsed to the floor, taking a nearby display with him.

"Please stop struggling." Kihara Nami calmly explained to him. "I would really like to get this over with." She held up her shield and charged at him with an annoyed expression on her face.

Touma knocked her shield away with his right hand. He didn't start to hallucinate. He just shoved her shield out of her hand and followed it up with a knee to her stomach.

"What the hell?" Kihara Nami stammered. "How did you… gloves!?"

It was true. On Touma's right hand was a simple glove. That had been his goal in coming to this store, and what he was running to. When he had been shot by the taser he managed to knock over the display containing them before he fell down.

"Such a simple defence." Kihara Nami lamented. "I'm proud of my SAPD but I really need to find a way around that simple defence. All you need is a layer of something between the poison and your skin and you won't be affected." It sounded less like she was talking to Touma and more like she was making notes to herself.

"That's right." Touma allowed. "Sorry but I'm going to beat you down now."

"Do you really think it would be that easy?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Don't tell me that you were so caught up in the confusion of the flash grenade that you didn't notice how unnatural it was for this open store to have no people in it?"

Touma's head wheeled. He had run from a street empty of people to a store empty of people so he hadn't noticed any difference. However there would have been no need Shokuhou Misaki to go as far as emptying out every store just for some privacy. That meant…

"Exactly." Kihara Nami declared as if she was reading his mind. "I gave myself ten minutes to set up before I approached you. It was quite easy to make up this trap while you were distracted flirting with that blonde girl."

"Damnit!" Touma yelled. He tried to jump behind cover but it was far too late. All throughout the store loud popping noises occurred and little boxes laying on the floor, which Touma had failed to notice in his haste, exploded outwards covering the room in an odd pollen.

Before he could breathe any of it in Touma clapped his left hand to cover his mouth and ran towards the door. He had no idea what the pollen was but he had no doubt that breathing any of it in would result in him losing the fight. Kihara Nami had pulled out a gas mask and was covering her face with it.

With his chest crying out in pain Touma managed to break out of the store and take in what was possibly his most grateful breath ever. As soon as he did so he regretted it. He tasted blood and his vision started to shake. _Damnit, the pollen must have spread outside through the broken window. _He realized. Kihara Nami walked out of the store right behind him, calm as ever, with some new weapon in her right hand.

Touma's body felt like heavy, like every limb was carrying fifty extra pounds. However he could feel that whatever weapon Nami was about to fire would kill him if he let it hit him. He cried out in pain and by pure force of will was able to push far enough away that he didn't get hit head on.

Kihara Nami pulled the trigger and a burst of wind shot out from her gun, as powerful as anything Vento of the Front or Accelerator could do. However this time it was a completely natural force and nothing Touma did could have stopped it. He had managed to avoid the full force of it but in the end he was still hit in the side and something in the wind tore part of him open.

"So it's over then." Kihara Nami announced.

Touma was barely able to move and he had no idea how deep the cut was. It was possible it was deep enough to kill him. Still though he raised his right fist.

"Are you some kind of moron?" She asked, bewildered. "There's no way an attack that slow and weak is going to hurt me you know."

She was so confident that nothing he could do would hurt him that she let him punch her in the face with his right hand without any attempt to defend himself. Of course the punch was weak. He just couldn't move fast enough to make it hurt. But it didn't need to.

"What?" Was the only word she could get out before the contact poison started to take effect. When he had punched her shield away earlier some of the sticky contact poison had done its job and stuck to his glove. Then when he had punched her it had stuck to her instead and started to take effect. First her eyes dilated, then she started to shake and look around in random directions, and then she started screaming.

Touma watched her for a while as the effects of the pollen slowly wore off of him. She remained standing for about five minutes and then collapsed onto the ground. She never stopped screaming.

He considered calling Anti-Skill but of course that wasn't an option. In the end he had no choice but to leave her be and hope that she would take this as a lesson. He peeled off the glove carefully, to avoid touching any of the poison himself, and threw it into a nearby garbage bin.

With that taken care of he decided he needed to get to the hospital, just for a quick patch up. He would have tried to solve the Anti-Skill problem or hunt down the demon summoners but the fact was he didn't have enough information. All he could do was get healed so that he would be ready when he had to fight Edward.

Whatever Nami's last weapon had been had broken his phone which was resting in his pocket so he was left with no choice but to walk. He was actively dripping blood so hopefully he would soon run into somebody who could call an ambulance for him.

It didn't work out simply of course. He did run into some people but they weren't people who would calmly help him with no strings attached. Kamijou Touma was the epitome of misfortune after all.

He had run into the Islamic cabal who wanted to marry him.

All four girls looked at him with shock and rushed over to his side with obvious concern. "Are you alright!?" Isra yelled. "Did that damn lab coat wearing woman do this!? I'll kill her!"

"It's fine." He told her more in an attempt to calm her down then because it was true. "Do you have a phone? I need to get an ambulance."

"No." Lana said. "I'm sorry but we don't use scientific stuff like that. Don't worry though, I'll take care of you."

"Magic won't work on me." Touma explained patiently. "Even healing magic will be canceled if you attempt any."

"What kind of fiancé would I be if I didn't know that?" Lana asked with a generous smile. "Now sit down and me and Sanada will patch you up. We're trained."

"Are you really that serious about that fiancé thing?" Touma asked with a sigh.

"Of course we are." Sanada told him. Then she started tugging at his shirt.

"What are you doing!?"

"We can't bandage you up with your shirt on." Lana lightly scolded.

"…Alright." It was embarrassing and painful but he allowed the two women to strip off his shirt and begin to tend to his wound. It would have been less embarrassing if Thara wasn't staring at him openly, and Isra didn't keep blushing and taking peeks.

"So how was your day?" Lana asked with a smile.

Touma winced as Sanada put antiseptic on his cut and answered "You don't want to know."

Lana frowned at him. It made her look cute. "When we're married we'll be telling each other about our days every day." She insisted. "That's the proper way a husband and wife should behave."

Touma just sighed and started to look around for something else to talk about, something in Sanada's bag caught his eye and he realized with a start that the odd semi-circle handcuffs that Kihara Nami had used the first time they had fought were sitting in her bag. "Did you keep those, Sanada-san?" He asked her.

"Yes. I was hoping that you would use them."

"Use them?"

"On me?"

"On you?"

"Yes. I'm an M."

"Don't say something like that so easily!" Touma shouted out.

"By the way, I'm an S." Lana said with her same easy smile.

"You're supposed to be the kind one! Don't say something that's so against your established role like that! And don't announce something that so easily to a person you just met!"

"Geez you guys really have no sense of shame huh?" Isra asked.

"This coming from the girl who has a diary where she records all her sexual fetishes and-"

"SHUT UP!" Isra yelled at the top of her lungs. "THAT DOESN'T EXIST OKAY!?" She screamed at Touma. "I'M DEFINETELY NOT THE KIND OF GIRL WHO WRITES THAT KIND OF THING DOWN!"

"Just how much of a tsundere are you?" Touma asked.

"Here." Sanada told him. She pulled a shirt out of her bag and handed it to Touma. He was done getting bandaged up and his old shirt was ruined.

"…How do you know what size shirt that I wear?"

"Isra told me."

"That one was actually a lie!" Isra yelled out as he pulled the shirt on.

"So the other ones were true?"

"No! It's all false! Just stop talking already!"

"Alright, alright, we'll drop the subject." Touma said. Truthfully he was just as glad to be moving away from the topic as Isra was.

"I think this is a good time to mention something important. I've been feeling something weird about this city for a while now." Lana confided in them.

Touma jumped on that immediately. "Weird? What do you mean weird? Could it be connected to those demon summoners or that curse that's affecting the Anti-Skill!?"

Lana looked a little nervous at his sudden intensity. "I-I don't know. I don't know anything about those people. I only know that the magic is very powerful and… chaotic."

"Chaotic?"

"Yes. The magic is… odd… it shifts and changes constantly. It's the oddest magic I've ever felt. It's coming from that direction," She pointed at it, "but other than that… I have no idea. It could be doing anything."

"Lana has a spell that makes her very sensitive to magic." Thara explained. "She uses it to sense when enemy cabals are getting close so we can avoid them."

"Do you guys really have it that rough?" Kamijou asked with sympathy.

"It's not all that bad." Isra confessed. "Lana is just a worrier."

Thara walked over to Touma and started stroking his chest with a finger. "If you wanted to make life easier on us you could just agree to marry us."

"Like hell!" Touma shouted. He pulled away from Thara's touch blushing. "I couldn't do something like that! I would definitely die!"

"Aren't you supposed to be the hero who saves girls in danger?"

"Don't give me that! You guys aren't in any danger here! You're already here so it's not like you can be hurt when the war starts!"

The four of them froze and shared one long glance with each other.

"I actually never thought about that…" Lana admitted.

"So we just had to leave…" Isra whispered.

"Well, whatever. Marry us anyways okay?" Thara said with a wide smile.

"What the heck is up with that!? Don't just keep pushing for that for no reason!"

"We want to marry you." Thara told him. "So just let us okay?"

"I-it's not that I want to marry you or anything- I just still want to become stronger." Isra added.

"How tsundere can you get!?" Touma accused.

Then he saw what was quite possibly the worst thing that he could have seen in that situation.

He saw something so horrible that fear filled every fiber of his being.

He saw something that made him want to take up a religion so he would have something to pray to for help.

He saw Misaka Mikoto walking towards him, and she saw him.

His life was going to end. He knew that by instinct. He knew that if Misaka caught up to him and overheard these girls talking about how they all wanted to marry him together his life would be over.

"It's an enemy!" He shouted, pointing at a random rooftop.

""Where!?"" All four girls reacted at once, jumping in front of him in an effort to protect him.

Then he ran away. He ran far faster than he had when he had been trying to get to the clothing store earlier. This was much more of a threat then that had been. He ran until he was sure that he wouldn't be found by either Misaka or those girls.

Then the time changed to 16:00.


	5. 16:00 - 17:00

**Author's Note:** It took me forever to get the scene in the park down. I'm still not completely happy with it but I just don't think I'm good enough of a writer to get the scene I had in my head down perfectly. I hope you're happy with it regardless.

Touma breathed deeply in relief. He was safe. Even if he still had a thousand problems to deal with he at least didn't have to worry about being electrocuted to death by Misaka. "Such misfortune." He sighed.

He had stopped running in a park a few streets away from where he had started. Although he called it a park it was actually only about the size of a small block, and didn't have any benches or other things for people looking to relax. It was more likely a place set aside for researchers to run nature experiments in when they needed to test something out in a real environment.

As soon as he thought that a surge of panic ran throughout his body. _If this is supposed to be used for experiments… wouldn't it be guarded?_ He thought.

"Discordianism."

That one word confirmed the worst of his fears. Touma had no idea what the word meant, but he knew that hearing it meant bad things were about to happen. That was the word that every single Anti-Skill officer that had gone crazy and attacked him today had said just before they started using magic.

Touma turned his head and saw exactly what he had been afraid of. The speaker had been an Anti-Skill officer. He was standing around the unconscious bodies of several other members of Anti-Skill, likely the ones who had been patrolling the experimental park with him. He was in between two large trees so Touma hadn't seen him when he was coming in.

The Anti-Skill officer spread out his arms and everything around him started to grow. The large trees he was in between were soon the size of small buildings. The grass went from looking like it had been freshly mowed to reaching up to Touma's knees. Wild flowers grew until they towered over Touma. Weeds grew so big they looked like they would fit in a horror movie. The only part of the park that didn't suddenly start looking like a jungle was a circle about two meters wide that was around the Anti-Skill officer.

He reached out and put his hand on a nearby tree but although it stopped growing while he was touching it, nothing else did. All that accomplished was wasting enough time to allow the grass to grow up to hips.

Touma started running towards the Anti-Skill officer, hoping that he would be able to stop him before the part turned into a forest, but the growing grass hid the ground from his sight and he soon tripped on some unseen overgrown root. His face hit the floor hard and around him all the greenery in the park continued to grow.

By the time he stood up the grass had already reached to his chin. After a few steps it was over his head and he couldn't see a thing. He struggled towards the Anti-Skill agent as best as he could but with every step the grass grew larger and more and more obstacles started to get in his way.

Then his head collided with a tree branch. He had not walked into it by accident. The tree branch had physically swung itself down to hit him like something out of a cartoon. The tree hadn't attacked him, it was merely swinging it's branches randomly. The branches moved through the grass like it wasn't even there. This was obviously some sort of magical phenomenon. It was extremely dangerous but with some luck he could avoid it.

Another tree branch hit him in the stomach, knocking the air out of him and sending him to the ground.

Kamijou Touma was not a lucky person.

Struggling to breathe Touma forced himself to his feet while the park continued to grow around him. The grass was now so thick and so tall that it barely allowed any light through at all. It was increasingly difficult to force his way through it and soon he might not be capable of it at all, but still he forced himself to repeatedly put one foot in front of the other again and again. The only solace he had was that he knew that the Anti-Skill member was only around twenty meters away from him.

As he advanced the trees kept swinging their braches around like they were swatting flies. He avoided most of them and managed to block one or two of them but the trees now had so many branches that it was inevitable that he would be hit repeatedly. When he was fifteen meters away he was hit in the face by another branch and only managed to stay up by grabbing onto it and using it as leverage.

When he was eleven meters away he was hit by a branch in his legs that swept him off of his feet and made him face plant into the ground. He got up and kept moving.

When he eight meters away he was clipped in the shoulder by a tree branch and managed to shrug it off. When he was six meters away he was hit by the same branch in the same spot and it nearly broke his shoulder. In the time it had taken for him to advance two meters the branch had gotten twice as thick.

When he finally forced his way into the two-meter clearing that the Anti-Skill officer was standing in it was like he had just finished a several kilometer run. His body was screaming at him to stop, just for a little, just enough for him to catch his breath. He had no choice but to refuse it.

The Anti-Skill officer was standing completely still with his arms held out at his sides with a strange green light coming out of each of his hands. He looked euphoric. He didn't move an inch while Touma walked over to him and punched him as hard as he could in the face with his right hand. The sound of shattering glass filled the area and the park finally grew still.

Just like all the others had, this Anti-Skill officer seemed to have no idea that he had been the one causing the chaos around him. He looked at the drastically overgrown park like it was some sort of puzzle. "What is this? Did one of those experiments go horribly wrong or something? Wait. What happened to Aizawa?" Then he finally noticed Touma standing over him with his right fist still clenched. "You! Did you do this esper!?"

"What the hell was going on here!?" Touma screamed at the man. "Do you really not have any memory at all!?"

"Memory? What the hell are you talking about?"

"What's the last thing you remember?" Touma pushed. Something didn't add up. The Anti-Skill member hadn't started to use magic until Touma had shown up. So _how had his fellow Anti-Skill members been knocked out? _"What were you doing before the park became like this? What was happening?"

The Anti-Skill officer looked tense but he forced himself to answer. "I was… Aizawa. Aizawa was going crazy. She was attacking us, all of us. Using some strange kind of power like an esper ability but… she's not an esper of course. She's just… I knocked her out. After she had taken everybody else down I knocked her out. I was trying to radio it in but all of our communication lines are down. Then I felt… dizzy… and then I was here."

Touma just stared at the man and processed the information. So not all the members of Anti-Skill had been affected by the curse. Yet at least.

The man filled in the blanks for himself without Touma needing to explain it. "The same thing happened to me didn't it? I did this… I made this happen." He gestured at the grass which was beginning to collapse under it's own weight now that it was no longer magically supported.

"I've got to leave now." Touma told him. "Where is Aizawa? I can make it so that she doesn't start attacking people when she wakes up."

"Aizawa? She's the blond one… wait don't leave! I have to take your statement!"

"Sorry but I have a lot more people to save before I can do that."

He started to dig through the grass looking for Aizawa. If he had been in an actual forest he would have been forced to give up hope but he knew that he was only in a small park. Even if the plants had grown to hideous sizes they were still stuck in the area the size of a block. Not to mention that he had seen that all the other Anti-Skill members that were knocked out had been around this Anti-Skill officer. It didn't take him that long to find Aizawa and break the curse that was put on her.

With that done he got out of the park as quickly as he could.

Outside of the park people were standing around taking pictures of the park and debating with themselves what had caused it. None of them were hurt or even scratched. Not a single piece of grass outside of the park had changed in any way, while inside the park the trees were now the size of office buildings. It must look like an attraction to the people who had been on the outside.

As he ignored the questioning audience Touma wondered what the scientists would think when they saw this. He laughed as he considered them spending weeks trying to figure out which of their experiments had been the cause of this sudden growth.

Touma turned his gaze north, the direction that Lana had been pointing when she had talked about how she felt a powerful and 'wild' magic. He was now sure that that was the spell that was affecting the Anti-Skill. Every single cursed Anti-Skill member he had fought so far had been destroying things randomly, almost without realizing what they were doing. That was undoubtedly something that would be called wild. Touma knew he couldn't deal the name magicians or the demon summoners right now but he could destroy this source of magic and free the Anti-Skills.

He had thought it would be hard to figure out where the curse was knowing only the direction of 'north' but as soon as he took a look on the map on his phone he knew where it was. It was so obvious he was surprised he hadn't thought of it before.

The fastest way to get there was by one of Academy City's unmanned buses. He had been running around the city to get places a lot lately but that wasn't by choice. It would obviously be faster for him to take a bus as long as he was so close to a bus stop. Not to mention how nice it would be to be able to sit down and rest while the bus delivered him to his destination.

Touma was forced to run to the bus stop to make it on time but that didn't concern him. A short run in return for fifteen minutes of sitting still sounded like the best deal he was going to get.

However his first words upon stepping into the bus were "Such misfortune."

The only other passenger on the bus jumped up as soon as she saw him enter and stalked towards him menacingly. The doors closed behind Touma and his fate was sealed.

"So. We meet again." Sarah Stone told him. She was the girl with long dark brown hair who had attacked him because of some grudge he didn't know the cause of.

Touma sighed. "I still don't even know why you want to attack me in the first place. Can't we put this on hold until another day?"

"Don't try that! If I let you go you'll obviously leave the city and move to some safe house!"

"Why would I leave the city just to avoid you?" As soon as he said it he wished he could take it back.

"I see… so you think that I'm that weak of an opponent huh!?"

"Wait that's not what I meant!" Touma lied. "I meant I just still don't understand why you hate me!"

"That's even worse!"

"Gah! Why don't you just come out and tell me what I did to your brother already!?"

"You destroyed his work!"

"When?"

"August 31st! You did it on August 31st!"

"… That magician who was pretending to be that Unabara guy?"

For a second Sarah Stone just stared at him in a stunned silence. Then she exploded. "So you think my brother is somebody you can just defeat on the sidelines huh!? How dare you defeat him on the same day as another magician!?"

"What kind of reasoning is that!?" Touma yelled as a stream of fire shot from the girl's hands. He held his right fist up in front of him and his Image Breaker destroyed the fire quickly. "So then it was that other guy right!? The one who kidnapped Index!? I didn't destroy his work! I helped him save that cursed girl!"

"My brother wasn't even the _second_ magician you defeated!?" Another stream of fire shot out from her hands and Touma blocked it again.

When his vision was no longer blocked by the fire he could see that Sarah was now holding a wooden sword in her left hand. "Where did that come from!?" He yelled.

"A magician is always prepared. Now prepare to suffer!"

She swung her sword like a hero in a movie and he jumped over a seat to avoid it. He landed on one of the cushioned seats and dived for the emergency stop button. A stream of fire forced him to turn around and block it before he could reach it, and that was followed up by another swing of Sarah's sword.

If he had been in a normal bus the bus driver would have stopped the car and called the police by now. However since this was an unmanned bus and Touma and Sarah were the only passengers he was forced to try and stop it on his own. The bus also had fire alarms that would stop the bus but Sarah's magical fire didn't leave behind any heat or smoke when it was dispelled by his Imagine Breaker.

Touma caught Sarah's sword in his left hand. He winced at the pain but he held it tightly and swung at her with his right fist. She let go of the sword and threw herself backwards. A professional would have ducked or taken just a step backwards but Sarah had thrown herself so that she ended up on her back on the floor.

Touma stabbed her wooden sword at her and she rolled away from it as fast as she could, which wasn't the smartest move considering that she was lying in a narrow bus hallway. Her head collided with the bottom of a nearby seat and she cried out in pain.

"You don't need to do something like this." Touma told her as she held onto her head and moaned in pain. "I don't know what I did to your brother, but that's over. Why should you have to go this far?"

"Because I love my brother." She told him stubbornly. "My brother is the most perfect, compassionate, hard-working, handsome, kind, intelligent, funny, confident, and skilled person who has ever lived!"

"Do you have some sort of brother complex!?" Touma yelled in shock.

"It's perfectly normal for a sister to love her older brother!"

"I think you have the wrong kind of love there!" Touma denied.

Sarah pulled herself to her feet with some kind of magic and made a sword of fire in her hands. Touma destroyed it with ease like he had the first time they fought. "What kind of power is this!?" She yelled in frustration.

Touma grabbed her arm and threw her at the aisle of seats. She hit one and tripped over it so that she fell into the seat in the next row. In the few seconds it took for her to pull herself up with magic again, Touma had run over to the emergency stop button and hit it. The bus came to an abrupt stop and Sarah who had just steadied herself tripped again and barely managed to catch herself on a seat and pull herself up.

Touma grabbed her and dragged her out of the bus.

"Wh-what are you doing!?" She demanded over the sound of the bus alarm.

"Anti-Skill might be held up right now, but people will probably be drawn to the bus after hearing the alarm. One of them could take a picture and post it online. That could mean a lot of trouble for us."

"For us!? You're my enemy so why the hell should you care what happened to me?"

Touma stopped walking. "…I figured it out."

"Figured what out?"

"I realize what I did to your brother. On August 31st I helped Biri-biri with that stalker, and then I dealt with the man who had kidnapped Index, _and then I helped that man save a woman who was cursed._"

"So what? What the hell does that have to do with my brother?"

Touma was silent as she figured it out for herself.

"…Don't be ridiculous. That's a lie. You're lying. My brother would never curse some woman!"

"Did you ever ask him?" Touma demanded. "Did you ever ask him what I did to him or did you just decide to attack me without asking why?"

"I-I just overheard it… I just heard him talking to a colleague… My brother is a good person." She denied. "He wouldn't do something like that. He wouldn't. He's a good person. A good person."

"Then why don't you ask him?" Touma told her. "If he's innocent I'm sure he'll be able to explain to you what happened. But if he's unable to come up with a straight story right away then you'll know he's lying."

"No… He's my brother. He wouldn't."

"Ask him." Touma told her. "If he tries to do anything to you when you confront him come to me. I'll save you."

Then he started running towards his destination, leaving her alone. The bus ride had been long enough that he was only about five minutes from his destination if he ran there.

Along the way he noticed things. There were torn up streets, broken windows, knocked over trees, crashed cars, and a dozen other things that he knew meant he was close to the cause of the disturbance. There wasn't a soul in sight either, likely they had all been evacuated by any Anti-Skill members that hadn't gone crazy.

Or at least, there was only one soul in sight.

It was Thor.

"What the heck are you doing here!?" Touma demanded. "I thought that you were going to leave Academy City after that business with Fräulein Kreutune was taken care of!"

"About that… various things happened and I decided to stay in Academy City for a few days."

"Such misfortune."

"Don't talk like that… say do you want to have another fight?"

"I don't have time for that!" Touma shouted out. "I already have demon summoners invading Academy City, magicians who snuck in and kidnapped Fukiyose, a Kihara is trying to cut off my right hand, Anti-Skill is going crazy, an Islamic magic cabal is trying to marry me, Shirai was kidnapped, and some girl just attacked me because I saved some woman from a curse! I definitely don't have time for another fight that will have me end up with my wrists dislocated!"

"…Did you just say an Islamic magic cabal is trying to marry you?" Thor asked in shock.

Touma was already past him, running towards his destination and ignoring Thor like he wasn't even there. Thor was so stunned he didn't even try to follow him.

He arrived at his destination soon enough. The place that he had realized was obviously the starting point of the curse. He was no magician but he guessed that something about this place would make it easier to infect all of Anti-Skill. There was undoubtedly some kind of symbolism in having the spell set up here of all paces.

He had arrived at the Anti-Skill's headquarters.

Then the time changed to 17:00.


	6. 17:00 - 18:00

**Author's Note: **Here we are. This is the longest chapter so far, and the halfway point of the series. It has barely any humor in it, but that was an unfortunate necessity.

* * *

The Anti-Skill headquarters looked like a war zone. The building looked like it was about to collapse with everything from broken windows to literal holes in the wall all over it. Not a single part of it was unscathed in any way.

In front of the building three powered suits were fighting a single Anti-Skill member who was controlling the wind. Or to be more accurate the three powered suits were attempting to stop the man while he threw them around like they were toys. Earlier Touma had seen a cursed Anti-Skill member create a tornado but this was more like something Accelerator would do. It was direct control of the wind.

As Touma watched one of the powered suits was lifted into the air and collided with another in a loud crash. Both of them were broken by the impact and ended up in a heap on the floor. There were several other broken powered suits lying around and even some of Academy City's unmanned helicopters. All of them had been reduced to rubble by the wind of this cursed Anti-Skill agent.

Finally the third and final powered suit was caught up in a gust of wind, lifted fifteen stories into the air and dropped. Touma had no way of knowing if the man inside was alive or not.

Even now that all of the threats were eliminates the cursed Anti-Skill agent did not stop controlling the wind. It looked like he had not even been attempting to fight the powered suits or the helicopters. He had destroyed them all accidentally. They had been nothing but bugs he had crushed underfoot without even noticing.

Touma raised his right hand in front of him and charged into the area being controlled by the cursed Anti-Skill officer. Almost immediately a huge gust of wind sprung into life and was negated by his right hand. It was like he had been targeted specifically but it was more likely his misfortune acting up. He didn't even break stride as he negated the magical wind and continued to run at the man at the centre of this magical phenomenon.

The second gust of wind hit him from behind. With Imagine Breaker out in front of him he was completely unable to negate it. In the air he was flipped around like a leaf floating in the wind and when he hit the ground ten meters in front of himself he landed on his back. It left him dizzy and he barely saw what was coming in time to get away.

Touma let out an involuntary scream as he threw himself to the side. A split second later a broken powered suit hit the ground beside him. If he had been the slightest bit slower he would have been crushed to death by the giant hunk of metal.

The Anti-Skill agent in the centre hadn't even noticed that he had almost killed Touma. Now that Touma was closer he could see the man looked oddly annoyed. He was so out of touch with what was actually going on that it was frightening. That wasn't all Touma noticed. He could also see the air shifting around the man. It looked like a distortion in reality.

Before anything else could get to him and crush him to death Touma picked himself off the ground and charged at the cursed Anti-Skill agent while holding up his right fist. The odd wind surrounding the man was shattered instantly and Touma unhesitatingly punched at the man.

He was only a few inches away from connecting when he was shoved aside like a piece of trash. Without even looking at him the cursed Anti-Skill agent had defended himself. Touma negated the gust of wind mid-air but by that point it was already too late. This time he hit the ground and rolled up without even a pause.

When he turned around to face the Anti-Skill agent again the air movement that looked like a distortion was back. Of course as an amateur Touma had no way of knowing what exactly the air movement was or why it was happening but it obviously wasn't good. He spat blood onto the ground and charged at the Anti-Skill officer once again.

The air around the cursed Anti-Skill officer exploded. That was the only term Touma could think of to describe it. It was like the Anti-Skill officer was the eye of a massive hurricane. The ridiculously powerful winds tore at Touma even though his right hand was raised and actively negating the magic. The spell was just too strong for him to negate instantly.

Eventually Touma lost his footing and was sent flying for the third time. He landed about fifteen meters away, directly in front of the Anti-Skill headquarters building. His clothing had been ripped to shreds so that he was practically shirtless. "Damnit." He cursed to himself.

The explosion of wind finally died down and the cursed Anti-Skill member still stood exactly where he had before, without so much as a hair out of place.

"I'm sorry." Touma told the man although he knew he couldn't hear him. "I'll save you when I destroy the source of this magic."

With another curse he turned around and entered the Anti-Skill headquarters.

The first thing he heard upon entering the building was gunfire. A lot of gunfire. Touma flinched when he heard some directly above him which ended with a loud scream. He could also hear a constant screeching alarm that just wouldn't stop.

Touma looked around the Anti-Skill headquarters entrance, desperately seeking any source of magic that he could find. Now that he was here he didn't know what exactly he should be doing. If he tried to look throughout the entire building by hand it could take him hours to find the cause of the problem and he would be too late for the duel to save Fukiyose. Not to mention that he might look right past the source of the magic without even knowing what it was if it wasn't an obvious setup. His phone was broken too, so he couldn't even call Index for help.

"What the hell are you doing here!?" A voice yelled at him. Two female Anti-Skills had just opened a door from a stairway into the building entrance that Touma was standing in. "This place is off limits!" She looked exhausted and her left leg was bleeding. The other woman with her didn't look that much better overall, although she only had a few scratches on her. Both of them regarded him with a mix of fear and suspicion.

"He might be one of them! He might be one of the traitors!"

"He's just a student!"

"Then what is he doing here huh!? Why would he be here if he wasn't one of them!?

"Damn it! So those bastards have even got students working for them!?"

"Wait a minute!" Touma interrupted. "I'm not one of them! I'm just a student. I'm here to fix this problem."

"Fix this problem?" The woman with the bleeding leg said. "Don't be ridiculous. Even if you are an esper there's no way you're going to be able to take out all of these people on your own."

"I don't need to take them out. I just have to destroy the source of the problem."

"The source?"

"These people are cursed. I need to find the source of the curse and destroy it. Then everything will go back to normal."

For a few seconds the two woman just stared at him in a shocked silence. Then they started laughing like madwomen, as if all of the stress of the last few hours had finally made them snap.

When it was over they started loading their guns with insane smiles still on their faces. "What the hell kind of a lie is that!? What a joke!"

"Did you really expect us to believe in a curse!? You're obviously working for the bad guys here!"

"No wait!" Touma tried yelling but it was too late. The Anti-Skill officers pointed their guns towards him and fired. He dived behind a nearby metal scanner and just barely avoided being turned into Swiss cheese. "Listen to me damn it!"

"Who the hell would!?"

The gunfire finally stopped and Touma sprinted at the only other stairway in panic. In a normal situation he would have been killed. In a battle between an unarmed amateur and two highly trained Anti-Skill officers with guns it would be impossible for him to win. However this was not a normal situation. The Anti-Skill officers had been running around all day fighting things that they couldn't understand and not knowing who would suddenly start to attack them. Not only were they tired, they didn't trust one another. An easy strategy to pick Touma off would be for only one of them to fire at a time, leaving no room for him to escape. However these two had been betrayed by people they trusted so much already that they subconsciously avoided relying on each other for help.

Touma ran up the stairs, paying close attention to the sound of the two Anti-Skill officers following him. Every now and then one of them would take a shot at him from below and he would throw himself against the wall. The two were constantly shouting insults at him as well.

When he got to the third floor he threw open the door and ran into the new hallway, slamming the door shut behind him. It wouldn't slow them down for more than a few seconds but he was so terrified he did it anyways.

He ran down the hallway he was in, taking random turns and generally doing everything he could to lose the two chasing him. It was just like escaping that Islamic cabal and Misaka had been earlier, although a building was obviously very different from a bunch of alleyways.

The place looked like even more of a mess from inside then it did from outside. Unconscious or occasionally even dead Anti-Skills were laying around everywhere. Bullet holes covered the walls and parts of them had been torn down entirely. Blood was everywhere. The stench was so bad Touma would have vomited if he hadn't been running desperately for his life.

Eventually Touma made a bad turn. He saw Anti-Skill officers, both of which were ignoring the destruction around them and casting magic. He skidded to a halt as fast as he could before he ran directly into them without being prepared and lost his life.

One of them, an old man, was gesturing with his hands like he was conducting a classical band. With each flick of his hands an odd green light shot out that was cutting through the floor. The strips of light were so thin that the cuts in the floor were only about as thick as a blade of grass.

The woman farther away was freezing things. Everything in a radius of five meters around her suddenly became coated in ice only to instantly melt when she walked past it. The temperature around her had to be far below freezing.

"At least they aren't flat out attacking me." Touma said. Compared to the woman who had made a tornado, the man outside who was controlling the wind, and the man who had turned the park into a jungle these two were basically harmless.

He tapped the old man on the face. That was all it took to save him.

Before the old man could compose himself Touma ran over to the woman. The freezing temperature was so bad that he nearly got frost burn. With his shirt reduced to a couple strips of cloth he was practically naked against the cold. He tapped the woman on the face as well and instantly all of the ice and cold vanished like it had never been there.

"What is going on?" The woman demanded.

Then Touma heard the old man scream.

He turned in time to see the old man collapse with several spikes of pure darkness sticking out of him. Even though he had been completely impaled there was no blood.

"What the hell!?" The woman Touma had just saved cried out.

One of the woman who had been chasing Touma stood at the other end of the hallway. A curious look was in her eye and a black orb was covering her right hand.

"She's been taken too!" Touma yelled out. "Damn it! What happened to your partner!?"

The newly cursed Anti-Skill officer didn't respond. She just raised her hand and pointed it at Touma.

"Like I'd let you hurt a student!" The woman who Touma had just saved screamed as she jumped in front of him.

A hundred black spikes shot out of the black orb. Most of them dissipated in midair without doing anything but six of them stabbed into the Anti-Skill officer and she let out a cry of pain as she collapsed to the floor. Touma had no way of knowing if she was alive or dead.

Now nothing stood between Touma and the cursed Anti-Skill officer. There was no cover he could hide behind and no doorways he could run through. "I can't block it." He admitted to himself. Even if he were to block one of those spikes he would still be skewered by the others.

"Wait!" He yelled in desperation. "I can-"

Three distinct gunshots cut him off. The cursed Anti-Skill officer collapsed forwards.

Standing behind her, with an automatic rifle held up, was Yomikawa Aiho his PE teacher and a member of Anti-Skill.

"Are you alright?" She asked him.

Touma just stared at the body. "Did you…?"

"Kill her? No. These uniforms are bullet proof, she's just unconscious."

Touma sagged a little in relief. "What are you doing here?" He asked.

"I'm a trained Anti-Skill officer, is it strange for me to be in the headquarters? What the heck is a student doing here? How did you get caught up in all of this?"

"That's a long story." Touma sighed. "Hey have you noticed anything… strange around here?"

"You mean like how half of the force have suddenly turned into insane espers?" Yomikawa deadpanned.

"I mean have you noticed any… symbols. Or a magic circle, something like what you would see in a videogame."

"I don't know. I was really only here to write a report. Why does that matter?"

"If I can find that I'll be able to put an end to this curse."

Yomikawa just stared at him for a moment before finally coming to a conclusion. "There's a security room here. If we get there we can look all over this place through the cameras."

"What if the cameras are broken?" Touma asked.

"Some of them will be… but no matter how I look at it, it will be too late if we have to search through the whole building. It's huge just from what can be seen on the outside, and it actually goes on underground for twice as long."

"Damnit." Touma cursed. "Where is the security room?"

Yomikawa pointed straight up. "Floor twelve. Let's go."

"Wait." Touma told her. He looked at the woman who had saved him by sacrificing herself and reached out his right hand to shatter the spikes of darkness sticking out of her. All of them broke apart at a mere touch but she did not get up. Thankfully she was still breathing so he doubted she was dead. Then he negated the spikes that were in the old man and nodded to Yomikawa.

Yomikawa led him to a staircase that was on fire. Without any fuel the fire covered about two levels of the stairs and for some reason didn't spread any farther than that. There was no smoke. Yomikawa cursed and started to turn away but Touma didn't hesitate to push his right hand onto it.

All at once the fire vanished and left behind no burn marks or scorched areas. "An illusion?" Yomikawa questioned out loud.

They continued up the staircase for a while until without warning the illusion of fire suddenly appeared beneath their feet again. Touma cried and tripped in surprise. His face hit the hard stone floor of the staircase and his eyes started to water. The illusion shattered again when his right hand touched it but he didn't even notice.

"Are you alright?" Yomikawa asked him.

Touma nodded and she pulled him to his feet. "Who did that?" He asked.

"Him." Yomikawa said with a gesture. A man stood in the doorway to the fifth floor. He was wearing full Anti-Skill equipment and staring at the ground with pure delight on his face. While Touma and Yomikawa watched he made an odd gesture with his hands and the illusion of fire again spread about across the staircase.

"Look out." Yomikawa said. She pointed her gun at the man.

Touma pushed it away before she could fire. "Wait." He told her again. He carefully stalked over to the man and put his hand on his face. At his touch the illusion of fire and the delighted expression of the man both disappeared at once.

"Where am I?" The man questioned. For a second he glared at Touma but as soon as he saw Yomikawa his expression lightened up. "What's happening here?"

"We're going to the security room." Yomikawa said. "We need to find the source of the problem on those cameras."

The man nodded without needing any more explanation, apparently having a lot of trust in Yomikawa. Their force of two had grown to a group of three.

When they got to the twelfth floor Touma found himself cursing his misfortune for the thousandth time that day. The place was a battlefield. The entrance floor and the third floor had only had a couple of people still standing, but here there were dozens of them. Gunfire was a constant noise, so loud it blocked out the alarm and the screaming.

"Stay close to us!" Yomikawa shouted at Touma.

The three of them managed to get about ten steps before they got caught up in one of the many conflicts on the floor. The wall directly in front of Touma burst open in a shower of dust and a very young looking female Anti-Skill member walked out of it. She pressed her palm outwards and a wall of force struck Yomikawa and the male Anti-Skill member who had moved in front of Touma. Touma held out his right hand and the wall of force broke apart.

Without looking to see if Yomikawa and the other Anti-Skill member were alright Touma charged at the girl in front of him with a clenched fist. Like all the others she made no move to defend herself and let Touma's hand collide with her face without any protest.

The girl skidded a few steps backwards at the force of the punch and tripped over some of the rubble she had created. Yomikawa and the other male Anti-Skill agent ran over to her before Touma could.

"Are you alright?" Yomikawa asked. "How much do you remember?"

"I was… in the communications room." She said. "We were trying to figure out what the problems were with our communication devices and other things."

"There's something wrong with our communication devices?" Yomikawa asked.

"You didn't notice?" The male Anti-Skill said.

Yomikawa pulled something out of her pocket that had been reduced to scrap metal. "Mine was broken almost immediately. I wondered why we weren't getting any reinforcements."

"There are no reinforcements." Touma told them. "This is happening all over the city."

Yomikawa grimaced. "What 'other things'? What else is wrong?" She asked the woman.

"We can't get out any of our unmanned vehicles to work other than the ones that were already out when this whole mess started. They just won't launch. If we had them working we could control some of the chaos but…"

"If all of the unmanned vehicles are shut down… could this be an attack on Academy City?" The male Anti-Skill member asked. "If all of the robots patrolling the walls are shut down then any invasion force could just walk right in."

"No." The woman denied. "Only vehicles belonging to Anti-Skill are affected. Everything related to security hasn't been touched at all. Whatever this is, it's an attack on Anti-Skill not any other members of the city."

The three Anti-Skill members stewed over that for a second until Touma said "That doesn't matter right now. All we need to worry about now is finding the source of the curse and destroying it. We can figure out who the magician is and what their goal is after that."

"Magician?" The woman questioned, but Touma had already started running down the halls and following the signs that pointed to the security room.

This time Yomikawa and the others let Touma run in the front. With his right hand he was able to stop any harmful magic that came their way. While he acted as a shield Yomikawa and the other two members of Anti-Skill shot any and all cursed Anti-Skill members that showed up. Although they were in an incredibly stressful situation those two Anti-Skill members were able to shoot with enough accuracy to only harm and not to kill.

Even with that system they still almost died several times. A few times they were mistaken for enemies by other non-cursed Anti-Skill agents and barely managed to avoid getting shot to death. Once a cursed Anti-Skill officer used some magic to choke Yomikawa and the others and Touma was barely able to save them all in time. Another time the floor in front of them partly collapsed and they barely managed to skid to a stop and avoid falling into the hole. Touma's misfortune meant that every single problem they could have run into, they did.

When they arrived at the security room Yomikawa punched in the security code to get in and they shut the heavy metal door behind them. Even though they were now in an area devoid of enemies and protected by a locked door none of them relaxed. They had just seen the floor collapse only moments ago after all and they all knew that the door wouldn't be that much of a threat if any of the really strong cursed Anti-Skill agents tried to take it down.

There were a hundred different screens set up in the security room. Every hallway, room, closet, and stairway had more than one camera in it. A lot of them were taken down by the fighting but there was enough left to allow them to see almost the entire building.

"What exactly are we looking for?" The male Anti-Skill officer asked.

"There." Touma pointed. The answer stuck out like a sore thumb. In one closet there was a magic circle painted on the wall that was glowing and filled with strange symbols that Touma had no idea how to read. That was the source of the curse. "Do you know where that is?"

"It's a janitor's closet." The woman said. "In the third basement level."

"Such misfortune." Touma sighed. He had been hoping that it would be close by but he should have figured that his misfortune wouldn't allow such a convenient solution.

"Discordianism." The male Anti-Skill said.

Then he held both hands above his head and several beams of a strange energy shot out in all directions.

Touma stuck out his right hand and he managed to negate one of the beams. The other two weren't so lucky. He was the only one who knew what that word signified and so he was the only one who had been prepared.

Yomikawa was hit just below the knees and fell over so that her head smacked the floor. The woman whose name Touma did not know was hit in the head. She screamed in pain as her head snapped backwards. The security room was torn apart as the beams of energy cut through the machinery.

"Damn it!" Touma screamed. He had never thought the man would be affected twice by the same curse. He ran towards the Anti-Skill woman expecting her to be dead. Instead he found her hair burned off with her completely unharmed. Yomikawa was pulling herself to her feet and he could see that where the beam had hit her shins her pants had been disintegrated too. "It doesn't hurt skin?" He reasoned out loud.

The man raised his hand above his head again and Touma charged at him. With his right fist clenched he swung it at the man to break the curse.

However before he could touch the man the floor fell out from under him.

He hit the ground on the floor below him with a cry of pain. It wasn't a life threatening fall but it was extremely painful.

He jumped to his feet expecting some sort of attack but none came. The only person in the hallway with him was a male Anti-Skill who was looking up and down with a wide smile on his face and walking around randomly. Touma had no doubt he was the one who had caused the fall.

"Are you okay!?" Yomikawa shouted from the hole above him.

"I'm fine. What about that man!?"

"Sorry. My gun got disintegrated. This might take a while."

"I'll go to the janitor's closet on my own." Touma promised. "I'll see you later."

Whatever Yomikawa was about to say was cut off by another shower of light and another cry of pain from the Anti-Skill officer with her.

Then the floor fell out from under him yet again. He realized the mistake it had been not to free the cursed Anti-Skill agent when he hit the floor below himself and screamed in pain.

This time he landed in an office. It wasn't that large but whoever worked here was obviously very highly valued judging from the amount of awards that were hung up on the walls. Touma opened the door to the hallway with trepidation but thankfully nobody was outside.

He sprinted for the staircase with all his might. Now that he didn't have three Anti-Skill officers to back him up he was twice as worried whenever he saw an enemy. One person deciding to shoot at him could be the end of him.

The stair case was for once empty of threats when Touma got to it. He jumped down stairs two steps at a time and almost tripped several times at his own enthusiasm. The floor signs zipped past him as he ran.

When at last he got down to the third basement level he had to stop for a minute to catch his breath. He had been running so much recently that he was surprised he hadn't collapsed of exhaustion.

The third basement level had nobody left standing. The only thing there was a pile of bodies, some unconscious and some dead. Touma guessed that being so close to the source of the problem had made much more people get cursed here then had elsewhere.

The janitor's closet was tucked away in a corner and empty of anything but the magic circle. It was the perfect place to put a curse, somewhere that nobody would look.

Touma punched the magic circle with a yell that expressed all the frustration he had built up over the day.

At his touch the magic circle exploded with energy. This was a spell that was so powerful it was able to affect every single Anti-Skill member in Academy City. It wasn't something that Touma could destroy with a touch.

"As if that matters!" Touma screamed at no one in particular.

The magic circle vanished with one final burst of energy and the nightmare that was affecting all of Academy City was over.

Touma panted his way up the stairs this time. He had no intention of sticking around here and getting arrested.

The female Anti-Skill agent whose hair had been burned off met him at the entrance. "Is it over?" She asked. She was holding something in each of her hands.

"For now." He told her. Even if he had destroyed the curse he still had no idea who had set it up or why.

She smiled at him in relief and held out a shirt to him.

"What's this for?" He asked.

"Yomikawa was stripped naked by the fight so she had to grab some new clothing and I decided to get this for you while we were there. I don't mind the sight of you shirtless but I thought you might want it."

Touma blushed as he realized that the remains of his shirt had been blown off at some point while he had been blocking attacks from the cursed Anti-Skill officers. He pulled on the plain white shirt with a grateful smile.

"Also… take this." The woman said. She handed him bowl of rice and meat she had been holding in her other hands. "I know it's not much of a thank you, but I heard your stomach growling and this is all I had."

With surprise Touma realized that he was starving. He had been so caught up in one thing after another that he hadn't even noticed that he hadn't eaten since before noon. He took the food and scarfed it down like a wild dog without even saying thank you.

"I'll see you later." The woman said with a smile. Then she kissed him on the cheek and left.

Touma mused over that as he left the building, barely even noticing the Anti-Skill agent who had been controlling the wind and was now digging people out of the collapsed powered suits. She hadn't been that much older than him. Anti-Skill was made up of teachers and it was common for genius students who finished college early to come here. She could have been only seventeen or eighteen. Could it have been that she was-

The time changed to 18:00.


	7. 18:00 - 19:00

**Author's Note:** Well it's been a while. Remember how I said it shouldn't take that long to update unless I got busy? Well that happened. I'd like to say future updates will be very fast but I shouldn't promise that. We'll just have to see.

* * *

At 18:00 exactly Kamijou Touma's train of thought was broken when for the third time that day he was hit by a tazer. "Kihara Nami!?" He managed to sputter out as the electricity surged through him. For once Touma planted his feet and held his ground. He did not collapse from the pain, unlike the other two times.

Kihara Nami was standing beside him. Even though he had knocked her out with her own contact poison and left her in the street, she was still there. "Did you really think that was all it would take?" She asked him. "That just because you beat me once I would never bother you again?"

Touma cursed. He had had no choice but to leave her lying alone in the street, since until very recently Anti-Skill had been dealing with too many problems to help him. Apparently as soon as the poison had worn off she had started tracking him again.

Kihara Nami pulled something out of her lab coat in a smooth motion but before she could use it Touma's fist collided with her face. Her head snapped backwards and she lost her footing. "Gah!" She cried out in pain. Touma relentlessly followed up with two more punches before she could regain control of the situation.

She dodged his fourth punch by a hair and pointed the weapon in her hand at him. "If you surrender now I won't have to kill you." She told him. "That would be the most efficient way to do this."

"Why is this so important to you?" Touma asked her. "Why are you willing to kill me just to study my right hand?"

She tilted her head slightly and answered. "For science of course."

"For that stupid of a reason huh?"

"There is nothing in this world with greater value than science. That is something that every Kihara knows. Will you surrender?"

She took Touma's silence as a no and pulled the trigger.

Once again a burst of wind so powerful it looked unnatural shot out of the weapon in her hand. The force of the wind knocked Touma off his feet and felt like his entire body had been smacked with a hammer. A dozen tiny objects shot out propelled by the wind, the same things that had cut up Touma's side earlier. A hero from a story would have gotten away with just a few scratches, but Touma was the paragon of misfortune. About ten of them hit him at various parts of his body, mostly in his torso and one right over his heart.

He screamed in pain and writhed around on the ground in a futile effort to somehow get away.

Kihara's foot stomped onto his shoulder and she aimed her odd weapon at him once again. Touma's eyes locked onto it and he couldn't help but notice how much it looked like a handgun.

"That was the weakest form of ammunition." She explained as she ground her heel into his shoulder. "Like most of my equipment it was designed to stun without killing. Those razors that are currently cutting into you are only about half a centimeter deep. They were designed to stop like that. Enough pain to prevent you from fighting back without significant risk to your life. However I have plenty of lethal kinds that I can easily use." As Touma watched she opened the back of the gun like a shotgun and pulled out some kind of ammunition from her pocket. "Now let me ask you one final time. Will you-"

Before she finish her sentence Touma her leg with his left hand and pulled as hard as he could. He was using his weak hand but she was a short woman, who obviously spent far more time sitting in a laboratory than she spent fighting or working out. He was easily able to make her lose her balance and fall over.

While Kihara Nami was lost in confusion Touma grinned in sheer relief. If he had been stabbed by as many of those razors as it had looked like he would no doubt have been unable to fight back. However something simple had prevented that. He was wearing a shirt he had gotten from an Anti-Skill officer. A shirt that was bulletproof. Other than two cuts on his legs and one on his left arm he was completely unharmed.

Now that they were both on the ground Touma grappled with Kihara Nami. He did not have any training that he knew of but he was easily able to overpower the woman and hold her down so that she was unable to escape. In response she swung her head backwards to head-butt him and make him loosen his grip for just a few seconds.

Apparently what she lacked in strength she made up for in limberness because in those few seconds she managed to disentangle herself from Touma completely. He tried to grab her again but she was already rolling onto her feet and running away. For a brief second Touma entertained the idea that she was running away for good now but she only ran far enough away that she was able to reload her odd gun and turn around to point it at him without him having the time to catch up to her.

She was visibly panting at him now. "Enough of this. I'm just going to kill you and study your dead body."

Touma's mind raced. He was still on the ground with one arm awkwardly paused in the position of lifting himself up, leaving him unable to even get close to dodging out of the way. There was nothing near him that he could throw at her. She was too far away for him to reach her before she pulled the trigger. Her face was covered in a wicked grin and he knew nothing he could say would sway her. In the span of three seconds Touma realized he was about to die.

Then he saw something falling through the sky and every muscle in his body relaxed at once.

One second Kihara Nami was standing over him and staring at him with a mad smile on her face and the next a white figure crashed into her and knocked her away with casual ease. In one touch she was rendered unable to fight and Touma's life was saved.

The number one esper of Academy City, Accelerator, had arrived.

"Thanks." Touma sighed in relief as he pulled himself to his feet.

"Who was she?" Accelerator asked him.

"Kihara Nami." Accelerator's mouth tightened when Touma said Kihara but he didn't say anything. "She was trying to cut off my right arm and study it."

"Is this involved with what's happening to Anti-Skill?"

"No, I already solved that about fifteen minutes ago." Touma told him. Then he explained about how he had been meeting the cursed Anti-Skill members all day, how they all kept repeating the term 'Discordianism' and how he had gone to Anti-Skill headquarters to fix the problem.

"Tch. What a fucking bother." Was all Accelerator said about it.

"By the way do you have a phone?" Touma asked. "I need to call Anti-Skill."

"I'll take her there myself." Accelerator offered. "I already need to go there. This damn idol is such a pain." Without another word and without a goodbye Accelerator grabbed the unconscious woman, flicked the switch on his collar, and took off into the sky like a bird.

"Idol?" Touma asked the empty street. The mental image of Accelerator putting up with a spoiled and pampered idol made him want to fall over laughing. Hopefully the idol was someone humble like Arisa had been, for both their sakes.

Now that the problem of Kihara Nami was once and for all solved Touma began running towards the estate that the mind controlling magicians who had kidnapped Fukiyose lived in. The time for the duel was approaching and he knew that he couldn't afford to be late.

As he ran Touma began to wish that he was able to drive. He was covered in injuries and even though some of them had been bandaged up by the Islamic cabal they still hurt and he had plenty of fresh ones. Not to mention the simple fact that he had been running around and getting in fights for over six hours now. He was exhausted both mentally and physically.

"Damn what kind of weak resolve do I have?" Touma asked himself.

He still had to rescue Fukiyose. He still had to help the Amakusa's defeat the demon summoners who had snuck into Academy City. He clenched his fist and kept running, ignoring the pain and exhaustion with all his willpower.

Halfway through his run Touma ran into yet another misfortunate situation.

Shokuhou Misaki the number five level five was running towards him. Or sprinting to be more exact. She was staring at the ground and panting as she ran, and Touma didn't think she could even see him.

"Shokuhou-san!" He yelled at her. "Are you alright? What's happening?"

Misaki collapsed into his arms, although he hadn't actually been holding them out for her. "Had. To. Run." She panted.

Three people who looked absurdly futuristic, even for Academy City, stepped out of a nearby alleyway. All of them were wearing giant white metal helmets that were about a foot tall and a foot wide. Their faces were the faces of normal highschool students. Two were women and one was a man.

"What did you do to her!?" Touma screamed at them. "Why is she panting like this?"

"Actually, we've only been chasing her about a block." One of the women deadpanned. "I don't know why she's so exhausted."

Shokuhou pulled out a remote control from her bag and pointed it at the woman, pushing the buttons repeatedly. "Turn on the others." She commanded.

The woman just looked at her with a slight smirk on her face.

"The helmets work!" The other woman practically sang. "This is such a genius design Ikoma-kun."

The man blushed a little and said "Thanks."

"That's not what I mean! Why are you attacking her!?" Touma cut in.

"There's really no point in explaining it to you. You're obviously just being mind-controlled by her. I highly doubt this was a chance meeting, where you just happened to know her and just happen to feel obligated to help her instead of running away. You would have to be an incredibly misfortunate person for that to happen." The calm woman explained.

"Please don't remind me."

"That's right." Ikoma said. "I hate to involve an innocent person in this but we should just get you out of our way."

"Sorry about this! We'll explain it you when you get released from her mind control!" The other, more excitable, woman yelled out as she pointed her left hand a few feet beside Touma. There water burst out of the ground, likely from a pipe, and shot out at Touma like it was coming from a fireman's hose. Touma's right hand blocked the water before it could blast him away and it immediately left the girls control and began to fall uselessly to the ground.

"An esper!" Ikoma cried out. He stepped in front of the excitable girl in one massive step, facing Touma with a look of determination in his eyes.

Touma took one step forward with his fist clenched but that was as far as he got.

The water as his feet rose again under the water-esper's control. This time however instead of going to attack him it coiled around his legs like a snake. The thick cords of water held him in place and wouldn't let go. Then quicker than he could react the water turned to ice, solidifying in place. He strained against it but the ice was so thick that he couldn't even begin to break it. He was anchored to the ground.

Touma leaned over to blow the ice away with his right hand but nothing happened. "What?" He asked out loud. There was nothing he could do now. The water had already turned to ice and wasn't being controlled by the woman anymore. He couldn't destroy it with his right hand any more than he could destroy ash caused by a magical fire.

"That's such a clever trick Kimio-san." Ikoma said with admiration.

This time it was Kimio's turn to blush. "Thank you."

"Don't be so pleased with yourselves." Misaki declared. She lifted her foot up in an exaggerated motion and kicked at the ice surrounding Touma's legs. "All I have to do is break this ice and-!" Her foot hit the ice with a loud yell.

Nothing happened. There wasn't even a crack.

"How weak are you?" The calm girl asked with a look of disgust.

"Shut up!" Shokuhou yelled back at her. Then she took off again.

The other three caught up to her easily, with just a few steps. They surrounded her but did not touch her, and laughed to themselves every time that she tried to mind control one of them.

"Now it's time for you to pay." Ikoma said.

"I've been waiting a long time for this." Kimio added.

"I've prepared a lot of things for you to suffer through." The calm girl told her with a sinister smile on her face.

"I'm not going to let that happen!" Touma denied hotly. He strained twice as hard against the ice holding him down but it was to no avail.

Kimio broke away from the others and stepped up to him with a look of concern on her face. "I am very sorry about this." She confessed to him. "I don't want to attack anyone just because that woman is controlling them. I will make sure to properly apologize to you when you are freed from her control as well." She bowed down to him, the perfect image of proper Japanese politeness.

Touma reached over and grabbed the helmet right off of her head.

For a second none of the three attackers registered what had happened and that was all it took for Shokuhou Misaki to act. The two still surrounding her sprang at her as quick as they could but when they reached her it was already too late. She had pressed the button on her remote and said in a carefree voice "Knock the helmets off of the others."

The water that hadn't been turned to ice reached up like fingers towards the remaining two attackers. They tried to flee but neither of them made it very far before the water reached up and grabbed the helmets off of their heads. The calm girl at least had the presence of mind to try and hold her helmet down but that didn't save her for long.

"Hold perfectly still." Misaki commanded with a click of her remote. The two fleeing attackers both stopped in mid step and didn't run any more. "Release him." She commanded Kimio with another press of her remote.

The ice holding Touma down turned to water again and flew away, leaving him with nothing but wet pant legs to remember the experience by. "Thank you." Touma told her.

"Shouldn't I be thanking you for coming to my rescue?" Misaki asked him with a smirk. "And shouldn't I give you a reward for saving me?"

"No thank you!" Touma blurted out. With the way his day was going he had no doubt that would quickly lead to Index biting him or Misaka frying him with electricity. "What were those helmets?" He asked, more to change the topic then from any actual curiosity.

"They make them able to resist my mind control." Misaki explained. "I encountered something like this when I was younger but those weren't nearly strong enough to block my current power… This boy must have really gone overboard to impress that girl."

"Why were they attacking you, anyways?"

"They caught on to how I control the girl's minds every now and then." She said causally.

"So it was for something as stupid as… What?"

"Sometimes I take control of their minds when I need a water esper or want someone to check around outside for me." Misaki explained calmly. "That guy caught on and informed them, so they decided to get some revenge."

Touma just stared at her blankly for a while.

Then he exploded.

"What!? That makes you sound like the villain here! No, not just sound like! You definitely were the villain! You were the bad guy here!"

"Don't be silly, is there something so wrong with borrowing someone else's mind for a little while?"

"Of course there is! That's obvious! That's the kind of ethics a kindergartener would understand! Release them!"

Misaki sighed and pointed her remote at her victims. "Leave here and forget how to make those helmets, and that you ever attacked me." Then she pointed her remote at the calm girl in particular. "As punishment you have to fall in love with Ikoma too to create a vicious love triangle."

"How petty can you get!?" Touma cried out in despair.

"Of course I can't allow people to attack me without repercussions."

Touma just sighed.

"I have to go. I have a duel to get to." He told her. He had wasted enough time with the fight and he refused to be too late to save Fukiyose.

"A duel? Are you a medieval knight now? Well I suppose saying things like that is pretty typical for you."

"What?" Touma asked but he didn't have time to stick around. "Nevermind, I'll see you later!"

Then he took off running again, heading straight towards the estate. It would have been very easy for him to get turned around and not able to find a place he had only been to once considering how much he had been running around the city today but Touma had had a lot of experience running around randomly. He knew how to keep track of where he was. He couldn't count the amount of times he would have gotten lost without that skill.

Inevitably he found his way to his destination to see Itsuwa standing around outside with the guards and looking panicked.

"What's wrong?" He asked her when he ran up to her.

"Why haven't you been answering my calls?" She asked him. "I was worried about you."

"Ah, sorry." He told her. "My cellphone broke. Such misfortune"

Itsuwa let out a sigh that was half relief and half irritation. "So that's all it was. Are you ready?"

Touma turned his gaze to the estate. Fukiyose was in there. A normal person with no connection to magic had been kidnapped and mind-controlled for the amusement of a group of magicians. He clenched his right fist as hard as he could and said "Yes." With every ounce of determination he possessed poured into that one word.

Itsuwa followed him as he marched into the estate.

The time changed to 19:00.

* * *

**Author's Note continued:** Two things. First of all, some of you assumed that Kihara Nami was already down and out. That was never my intention and that's why I had Touma remark on how he couldn't call Anti-Skill when he beat her last time. To clarify, this time she is down for good. And secondly if you're wondering what Accelerator was talking about when he mentioned that idol, then rest assured you didn't miss something. That will be a part of a fanfiction I eventually plan to write where Accelerator has to look after an idol that will crossover with this one.


	8. 19:00 - 20:00

**Author's Note:** This one came out much faster than the last one. I had quite a bit of free time so I dedicated most of it to writing this. Enjoy.

* * *

Touma stormed into the estate belonging to the mind control magicians, ignoring the protests of the slaves who had been assigned to guide him. Itsuwa was following close behind him with her spear assembled. She looked ready to pounce on anyone who even looked like they might attack them. All of the magicians Touma had seen earlier were nowhere to be found, leaving the place feeling empty.

When they arrived at the throne room Richard was sitting on his throne and Edward was standing by his side with a scowl on his face. "Finally here?" Edward asked. "Here I was thinking that you had run away."

"Where's Fukiyose?" Touma demanded.

"That's-"

"She is prepared." Richard cut in with a glare at Edward.

"Prepared?"

"As is customary in duels to decide the ownership of a slave."

"Fukiyose isn't a slave." Touma growled at him.

"This woman has been taken in accordance with our ancient customs and laws. Regardless of our current circumstances those have not changed. If she is freed at the end of this duel, so be it. For now she is a slave." He spoke the words like a man long accustomed to people following his orders. He did not sound spoiled like Edward did, he was merely full of dignity and self-assurance. "Now, your wager piece is to be prepared and we shall begin the duel."

"Wager piece?" Touma questioned.

"That girl you're betting." Edward said, with a leer at Itsuwa.

"I shall have no more interruptions out of you boy." Richard cut in. "Do not think that because we have reached a peaceful solution to this problem that your violation of my orders will be excused. After you have won this duel you shall still be punished."

"Are you sure you're okay with this?" Touma asked Itsuwa in a voice too low for Richard and Edward to overhear.

"It's fine." She insisted. "I believe in you." She looked deeply into his eyes in an almost romantic way and then turned away to follow two woman in the partially see-through robes that marked the slaves here.

"Now then." Richard said as he rose from his throne. "You shall be guided to your place. Your companions are already waiting for you there."

"My companions?" Touma questioned but Richard and Edward ignored him, descending from the stairs in front of the throne and leaving the throne room through a side passageway. One of the male slaves guided Touma through a different passageway out to the back of the estate.

In the back of the estate was an old fashioned looking stadium. A field of low cut grass was surrounded by wooden railings and at one end a raised platform with a throne and several smaller seats stood in between two wooden stands. Across from the audience area there was a podium that was also made of wood. Two little wooden huts stood at the short ends of the field. The only decorations were large banners of different heraldries. If armoured knights had come out and started to joust they would not have looked the slightest bit out of place. All of the magicians Touma had seen before and more were packed into those stands. Even so, the place looked empty as if it had been made to hold far more people.

Touma's eyes immediately locked onto a solitary figure that was standing on the podium. It was Fukiyose. She was still wearing the white translucent robe but she looked unharmed. He stormed over to her but he was stopped in his path by two magicians who seemingly sprung out of nowhere. "You will not speak to the prisoner." One of the magicians, a middle aged woman told him. "Prince Edward has told us all about your power to break the spell. We will not have you stealing her before the fight begins. I even have to take control of this Fukiyose woman myself just so that you don't free her while fighting Edward."

Touma ignored her as he was focused on the person the two of them were escorting. Itsuwa had changed into one of the white robes that were partly see through. Her eyes were not blank like Fukiyose's or slaves were. "Are you okay?" He asked her.

"I'm fine." She told him. Then to his complete surprise she ran forward and hugged him very tightly.

Touma wished he hadn't chosen that moment to realize how erotic the partly see-through robes were, especially since Itsuwa and others didn't seem to be wearing anything under them. He was far too shocked to hug her back. "Itsuwa?" He asked with his face pure red.

"I overheard them talking." She whispered in his ear very quietly. "That magician Edward uses a lot of spiritual items. He can barely fight without them. Apparently he's only good at mind control magic."

"Thank you." Touma whispered back into her ear.

They separated and Touma finally relented to following the directions of the white robed slave leading him. He was led to one of the huts that stood at the short ends of the field. "What did he mean by companions?" Touma finally asked the slave.

His question was answered for him when he opened the door to the hut to find none other than the Islamic cabal that wished to marry him inside. "What are you doing here?" He blurted out.

"Is it so strange for women to want to support their fiancé at an event like this?" Sanada asked him. "I don't know how I feel about you doing all this for some woman other than us but I suppose I enjoy your need to help others."

"I don't recall agreeing to be your fiancé." Touma denied. He started to slowly back out of the door but before he could some magic shut it on him. "Such misfortune." He said. "How did you know I would be here?"

"I felt that there was a group of magicians here." Lana told him. She had told him before that she had a very strong sensitivity to magic. "So we came here to see if they had any connection to you, and they told us about the duel. So we decided to stick around."

Touma silently resigned himself to their presence for the next few minutes as he sat down on a bench. Thara and Lana sat on either side of him without missing a beat, and both of them grabbed one of his arms and snuggled up against him. Then to his terror Sanada sat down on his lap as naturally as if they did it all the time.

"What kind of situation is this?" Touma asked. He felt like he was surrounded by softness. He tensed up irrationally fearing that sooner or later Misaka would burst in the door out of nowhere and fry him with lightning or Index would burst in and start gnawing at his head.

"Why are you guys getting so comfortable all of a sudden?" Isra asked. Touma couldn't see her but he could tell she was blushing.

"This is nothing unusual for fiancés." Lana insisted.

"We aren't fiancés!" Touma denied but nobody was listening to him.

"We should make some room for Isra." Thara suggested.

"Is there really anyway we can?" Sanada asked. "Isra how about you cling to his legs like women do in old movie posters?"

"Absolutely not!" Isra denied.

"Hmmm, how about we have Kamijou lay of the floor and then surround him like that?"

"Stop talking about me like I'm not here!" Touma insisted.

"I never said I wanted to sit that close to him anyways!" Isra shouted at them. Touma heard her sit down on the bench opposite them.

For the next few minutes the five of them sat in silence as the three girls sitting on and beside Touma did their best to press themselves as close to him as they physically could. He was very nearly at his breaking point when the door to the hut finally opened and a man in a white partly see-through robe gestured for Touma to follow him.

The girls got off Touma reluctantly but before he could follow the man out Thara walked up and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "For luck." She told him.

"That kind of luck charm won't have any effect on me." Touma told her while embarrassed. Lana and Sanada advanced towards him as well but before either of them could kiss him too he quickly followed the slave out of the hut.

He was led to the center of the field where he stood across from Edward. Edward was carrying a wand in his left hand, had a belt with the head of a bear on it, and was wearing a simple crown upon his head. Touma assumed these were the spiritual items that Itsuwa had warned him about. Other than those things Edward didn't look any different but for all Touma knew he could also have other items in his pockets. "I am going to crush you, you damn prey." Edward threatened him. Touma just glared back at him.

"In the name of our king Richard I ask you all to cease speaking and listen." A loud voice that seemed to be magically enhanced announced. It was coming from the podium that Itsuwa and Fukiyose were standing upon. "We all know why we are here today. We are here to witness the duel between our prince Edward-" Loud cheering from the audience cut him off and the announcer had to wait for it to die off before continuing "-and his challenger Kamijou Touma." The Islamic cabal cheered their loudest for Touma but it sounded tiny compared to the applause Edward had gotten. "Prince Edward has wagered his own recently captured personal servant Seria Fukiyose, while Kamijou Touma has chosen to bet a magician known as Itsuwa. The winner shall receive the others property."

"Is that what they think is going on?" Touma demanded of Edward. "That this is some game? Just a stupid bet?"

Edward ignored him and waved to the crowd which got him another loud cheer.

"The duel shall be three rounds. Each round shall end when one duelist is knocked off of his feet. Each round shall have a ten minute break in between unless more time is needed to treat serious wounds."

Richard stood up from his throne and his voice boomed across the stadium without any need for a spell. "Let the first round begin!"

As soon as he finished talking Edward sprinted at Touma, running faster than humanly possible. He covered the distance between them faster than Touma could react to and delivered a punch to Touma's right shoulder. "Gah!" Touma shouted out. "What the hell!?" Earlier when Edward had punched him it had been very weak but this punch was easily stronger than anything Touma could manage.

Touma swung at Edward's face but Edward danced out of the way so that Touma only managed a graze and then punched Touma in the gut. Then he pointed his wand at Touma and a stream of fire shot out, that Touma barely managed to block with his right arm.

He punched Edward again and this time his fist connected with Edward's face, knocking Edward backwards and making his crown fall off of his head. For a second Edward lost control of his footing but before Touma could hit him again he had recovered and took another swing at Touma.

Touma tried desperately to block it but Edward smashed him in the face and Touma flew backwards, landing on the ground.

Just like that the first round was over. "Shit!" Touma yelled as he punched the ground in frustration. The Islamic cabal ran over to him and started treating his wounds while Edward basked in the applause of the audience.

"Are you alright!?" Isra yelled at him.

The four girls soothed his wounds as best as they could but Touma was too frustrated to thank them. He looked over at Fukiyose and Itsuwa. The two of them were depending on him. If he lost now only a life of slavery awaited them. Yet Edward had beaten Touma easily. "How did he move that quickly?" Touma asked the four girls.

"It must be that belt." Sanada told him, as calm as ever. "I don't know the exact theory but it must be easy to find a legend linking bears to strength and speed."

"You don't need to do this. You don't have to fight here. Let's just leave so you don't have to get hurt." Isra practically begged him.

"…Screw that. I'm not going to leave Fukiyose and Itsuwa behind." That said Touma pulled himself off of the ground and marched back to the centre of the stadium for another round. He could make out Itsuwa looking at him in concern and realized that she was more worried about him then she was about herself. He tried to give her a reassuring smile but he had no idea if she could even see it.

The next round started soon after and this time Touma was ready for Edward's incredible speed. Edward sprinted towards him again, swinging his fist at Touma. Touma's punch met Edward's in mid-air and with the sound of shattering glass Edward's fist gave way. Just for that split second that their hands had touched the enchantment on Edward had been cancelled out and Touma's superior strength won out. His fist hit Edward right between the eyes.

Instead of immediately attacking back Edward held up his hand to his nose in pain. Touma swung at him again but this time he wasn't aiming for his face. His right hand connected with the belt that Edward was wearing and the spiritual item broke apart easily.

"What the hell do you think you're doing!?" Edward screamed at him. He pointed his wand at Touma and fire again shot out of it. In the same motion Touma blocked the fire and punched Edward in the face. "Stop that!" Edward screamed at him. "You're just prey! You can't hit me like that!"

Touma proved him wrong immediately after that with another punch to the face. This one sent Edward sprawling off of his feet and drove his face into the ground. The second round was over.

The Islamic cabal starting cheering immediately and Touma even heard Itsuwa join them. He smiled in relief at Edward's crumpled form. Edward pulled himself to his feet and glared daggers at Touma as he stalked away.

The Islmaic cabal caught up to Touma and all started congratulating him. "That was incredible!" Isra told him.

"You were so cool." Lana added.

"It was fantastic!" Thara screamed in his ear.

"Be careful." Sanada warned. Unlike the others she looked very serious. "It isn't over yet. I'm guessing that crown of his has some enchantments too."

"I will be." Touma told her. He watched as Edward scooped up the crown that had been knocked off his head in the first round.

The ten minutes before the next round passed quickly as Touma found himself oddly enjoying the company of the Islamic cabal. They were nothing but supportive and they soothed away all his worries that he might lose and Fukiyose and Itsuwa would be forfeit. He went to the next round with nothing but determination inside himself.

"Why are you doing this?" Touma asked Edward right before the next round started. "Why the hell do you believe that you can kidnap Fukiyose like this?"

"I'm a hunter. She's prey." Edward bragged. "My family have been kings for generations. We have a right to take from weak sheep."

Touma fist tightened automatically. "Is that what you believe? That you can just take what you want because you were born special?"

"My family is glorious." Edward insisted.

Touma shot a disdainful glance at his surroundings and the twenty or so magicians gathered there. "You call this glorious? You think that you guys are kings? You're nothing more than a bunch of beggars."

"If you insult my family again, I will crush the life from your body." Edward threatened.

"Let the third round begin!" Richard announced.

This time instead of running at Touma Edward made a gesture with his left hand and Touma felt his leg go completely numb. He barely managed to fall over without the extra balance from his leg. Edward had used this attack before, when he fled with Fukiyose before Touma's eyes.

Edward pointed the wand in his right hand at Touma. "You doubt my family's power!?" He demanded. "You call us beggars!? Then behold the power of the crown of Woden, leader of the Wild Hunt!"

A bright light began to shine at the centre of Edward's crown and slowly grew stronger and stronger. Touma touched his numb leg with his right hand and as he did so the light separated itself from Edward's crown and flew into the sky. Too late Touma realized the numbing had been just a distraction.

The light in the sky turned into a pure white dome that quickly grew to cover the entire stadium. Golden weapons of every kind emerged slowly from the dome and floated in the sky.

"This is our power!" Edward declared. "This is the last piece of true power my family has remaining! We are the ultimate hunters, and all weapons of hunters are ours to use as we see fit! With this crown I shall restore my family to its rightful glory! These two women are just the first step! Soon I will control this entire pathetic city! And then the world!"

Touma watched in horror as the one of the weapons that blotted out the sky descended into Edward's hands. It was a beautiful golden bow. Touma would even have admired it if Edward hadn't immediately used it to shoot him with an arrow.

Touma's right hand blocked the magic arrow before it could kill him but it didn't shatter at his touch. The magic was so strong that it lasted a while, straining Touma's wrist. Right after it followed another arrow, and then another, each so strong that Touma couldn't easily negate them.

After the third arrow Edward threw the bow aside and another weapon fell from the sky so that he could grab it. This one was a golden sword that had some strange markings Touma couldn't read on it. Touma ran towards Edward with his fist clenched, ready to attack.

Edward swung at Touma, an amateur's swing that Touma was able to knock aside. The sword didn't break apart when Touma touched it with his right hand but it did let out a golden light that blinded him for a second. Edward threw the sword at him and Touma jumped to the side, barely managing to stay out of the way of the blade.

Two scimitars descended next and Edward snatched them out of the air. He charged Touma, swinging both of them at the same time. Touma blocked one of them and barely moved out of the way of the other. If Edward had been a trained swordsman Touma would no doubt have been killed almost immediately but fortunately Edward was just swinging the blades randomly, allowing Touma to barely stay alive.

Again and again Edward swung the two blades at Touma, pushing him backwards and bringing himself closer and closer to victory. Touma's wrist started to ache from blocking the blades and with each swing Edward was getting more comfortable with his weapons. If Edward had simply kept pressing that attack he would have won as inevitably as the tide.

Instead Edward threw away the two scimitars and pulled another bow out of the sky. He pulled the arrow back on the bowstring with a shaky hand and fired it at Touma. This time the arrow broke immediately after touching Touma's hand.

A flash of realization flooded through Touma.

"Hey Edward." Touma said. "If this crown is so damn powerful _why didn't you just use it at the start?_"

Edward looked at him with naked fear in his eyes and Touma knew that he had seen right through him. With panic Edward pulled back another arrow and loosed it. Touma didn't even have to block it this time Edward's shaky hands made him miss by a considerable amount.

"Why didn't you use it in the first round or the second? In fact, why didn't you just use it when you kidnapped Fukiyose in the first place?"

Edward fired another arrow and Touma swatted it away without even looking. He stalked towards Edward slowly as he spoke.

"You can't control it can you? It's just too strong for you."

Edward let out a panicked scream and aimed his wand at Touma. The fire vanished instantly when it touched Touma's right hand. "Shut up!" He yelled. "Shut up, shut up!"

"If you think that you can enslave people just because of your family history, if you think that you stand above everybody else and can do what you want with us, then I'll break that illusion of yours!"

Touma broke into a run while Edward pulled another arrow onto his bow. Before he could even take aim the bow shattered in his hands, completely useless. Touma's right fist hit him a second later, driving him to the floor and destroying the crown on his head forever.

They dome in the sky shattered when Touma broke the crown and the world returned to normal.

The crowd was too stunned to do anything. Before their eyes their prince had used the most powerful item in their possession, and lost. They must never have seen it coming.

The Islamic cabal on the other hand didn't have any such problem. They started cheering the second the second the dome broke apart and they sprinted out to meet Touma in the middle of the field. He felt like a star athlete who had just won a big game.

While they showered him with praise Richard rose from his throne to address Touma. "You have won." He said, as dignified as ever. "Take your prize and leave."

The crowd booed as Touma and the Islamic cabal walked over to the podium that Fukiyose and Itsuwa were standing on but he ignored them. Itsuwa was practically glowing and was looking at him with pride and joy. "You did it!" She shouted out.

"Of course he did." Thara said with an almost bragging tone. Did you expect anything less of our-"

"Anyways we should rescue Fukiyose!" Touma frantically cut her off before she could say that world in front of Itsuwa. Fukiyose was staring straight ahead with a completely blank look in her eyes. She was still under the spell, but now the only thing that was left was to free her. Touma put his right hand on her shoulder, ecstatic that she was safe. With one touch the spell on her shattered into pieces.

And so did her robe.

Fukiyose's eyes returned to normal and Touma mentally traced her chain of thought. The last thing thing she remembered she had been standing in an alleyway seeing the Touma she knew as a lazy good-for-nothing acting very serious. Then the next thing she knew she was standing on a wooden podium in the middle of nowhere, obviously much later on in the day, with Touma's hand on her shoulder. While she was naked.

"Ka-ka-ka-ka-Kamijou Touma!" She screamed, failing to cover her enormous breasts with just one arm. "What have you done to me!?"

"Such misfortune!" Touma cried. He guessed the situation would have gone better if he had managed to not stare at Fukiyose's naked body but he was just a regular teenage boy.

Fukiyose head-butted him so hard that he fell off the podium and Itsuwa jumped down to see if he was okay.

"What is going on here!? Fukiyose demanded of the world.

"Can you guys explain it to her!?" Touma asked the Islamic cabal. He doubted Fukiyose would let him calmly explain things to her while she was naked.

"Alright!" Thara shouted down at him. "Come on, we'll get you some clothing and explain everything."

"Who are you people!?" Fukiyose yelled as she was dragged away by the four women.

"Are you alright?" Itsuwa asked him. She helped him pull himself to his feet with a worried expression.

"Um, Itsuwa?" Touma asked delicately. "Maybe you shouldn't get so close to me while you're wearing that."

Itsuwa's face turned red and she backed away from Touma as quickly as she could. "R-right!" She shouted out. After that there was an awkward silence until Itsuwa asked. "So… who were those girls?"

"Just acquaintances of mine!" Touma said too quickly. "Anyways, have you found those demon summoners yet?"

"No." Istuwa said. "It's taking a lot of time. Demon summoners have always been persecuted so it's not strange for them to be very good at hiding."

"I see." Touma said. He and Itsuwa started to leave the estate, wanting nothing more to do the people there. Fukiyose and the Islamic cabal had vanished but Touma had no doubt that they were fine. "Wait... should I really have left Fukiyose with them?" He asked out loud once they had exited the estate.

"What?" Itsuwa asked.

"Damn it. How many misunderstandings are they going to create!? Such misfortune!"

"I don't really understand what you're talking about... but I have to go." Itsuwa told him. "Here take this." She handed him a pink phone.

"Your phone?"

"So that I can call you, when we find the summoners. You can give it back to me then."

"Alright." Touma told her as she mounted her motorcycle. "I'll see you later then. Thank you for helping me save Fukiyose. I know that was a huge risk to take."

"It was nothing." Itsuwa told him. "You were fighting for me so I didn't have anything to worry about." Then she drove off leaving Touma feeling oddly happy.

For the first time in what felt like a very long day, Touma felt relaxed. Fukiyose was no longer in danger, Anti-Skill wasn't cursed into going crazy at random, Kihara Nami had been safely put away and a lot of other incidents had been resolved. He now had nothing to worry about until Itsuwa and the Amakusa's found the demon summoners.

"I found you again!"

"Such misfortune."

The time changed to 20:00.


	9. 20:00 - 21:00

**Author's Note: **There's a poll on my profile for this story, to determine the romantic ending it will have. You can vote for a harem end, or a comedic nothing-is-resolved-yet end where the girls are still fighting over Touma. I keep switching back and forth between these two choices in my mind and so I decided it would be fun to leave it up to you, the reader. Please vote away. A tie will be determined by a flip of a coin or a random whim from me.

I was trying really hard to get this out on Saturday, but then I got sick. I hate when that happens.

* * *

"Why do you have to show up again?" Touma complained.

"Shut up! Do you have something better to do then talk to me?"

"Well… not right now."

"What's with that response!?" Sarah Stone yelled at him. The first two times they had met she had attacked him, but now she was talking to him as if they were old friends.

"Never mind. So? What happened with your brother?"

Sarah lost all of her energy and her face became a mask. "He… he wouldn't tell me. He made up a story but… it was obviously a lie. I don't…"

"I'm sorry." Touma said with as much sympathy as he could. He couldn't imagine what finding out that a family member that you had looked up to your whole life was a criminal would be like…. Well aside from that moment during the Angel Fall incident where he had suspected his father but that didn't really count since from his perspective he had just met the man.

"Yeah… It's fine. I guess I never really knew him in the first place."

"If you ever need any help, just let me know." Touma offered a little awkwardly. He wasn't entirely sure what to say.

Luckily it seemed to be enough. Sarah smiled at him and said. "Thank you. I will." For some reason Touma couldn't help but think that she looked oddly cute.

"Hmm? What's this romantic moment?" A new voice cut in.

"Romantic moment?" Sarah yelled with a little blush. "What are you talking about!?"

"Isn't that obvious?" Shokuhou Misaki, the number five level five, asked. "I'm talking about how you two are flirting so much.

"Whose flirting!?"

Misaki grinned at her and ran over to Touma, grabbing onto his left arm like a lover. "Oh? So you aren't interested in him at all? Not even a little bit? So it doesn't matter to you if I do this?"

"Not at all!" Sarah hotly denied.

Misaki pulled out one of her remotes from her bag. "Tell the truth." She commanded in a sing-song voice.

"It bothers me a little. I think he's kind of cute and find you holding yourself against him kind of irritating." Sarah said. "Wait. What just happened!? Why did I say that!? What did you make me do!?"

"I just made you tell the truth. It's not my fault you said something like that."

"It's totally your fault!"

"Now, how should I punish you for lying? How about you show your panties?"

"Don't just ignore what I said! Wait a minute, what are you doing!?" To her horror her hands were reaching down towards her skirt and then slowly pulling it upwards.

"That's enough!" Touma finally yelled out. Just before something horrible could happen he pressed his hand against Sarah's forehead, completely negating Misaki's control over her. Her hands stopped rising and she dropped her skirt.

"That was too far!" Sarah yelled. A sword made of fire materialised in her hands and she charged at Misaki, attempting to skewer her on it.

"Stop." Was all Misaki needed to say. With the push of a button Sarah halted in mid-step and held completely still, her sword of fire still burning in her hands.

"What are you doing to me!?" Sarah demanded. "How is this happening?"

"This is my power." Misaki explained. "I can control people's minds."

"What a despicable power!"

"How rude. Am I the one who just tried to burn another person to death? Isn't that much more despicable?"

"You deserved it! How could you try and make me do something like that!?"

"You are very quick to get angry aren't you?" Misaki said. "Now it's time for your punishment for trying to kill me. Showing your panties isn't enough so how about I have you strip down completely?"

"I will not!" Sarah yelled. "Even if I can't move I can still do this!" The sword of fire turned into a more normal looking flame that shot out from her hands at Misaki.

The sound of shattering glass filled the air as Touma stopped the ball of fire from burning Misaki to death. "Stop that!" He yelled. "What the hell do you think you're doing!? She could have died!"

Misaki clung to Touma's back. "Thank you. That's twice in one day you've saved my life."

"You stop it too! Why are you antagonizing her like that?"

"What are you talking about? Don't you want to see more of her?"

"As if I would!"

Misaki skipped over to Sarah and pressed a button on her remote. "Make an erotic pose." She said and Sarah had no choice but to follow the order.

"I'll burn you to cinders!"

"Stop trying to attack me." Misaki commanded. "I don't know how you're making fire when your mind says you aren't an esper… but as long as I use that command it doesn't really matter." She struck a cute pose beside Sarah. "So, how about it? Would you like to enjoy both of us?"

"I won't allow that!" Sarah yelled out. "I don't want my first time to be like this!"

"Who said anything about sex?" Misaki taunted. "I was just going to let him kiss us a few times. What a perverted mind you have."

"Anybody would assume that you were talking about that! You're a pervert! A complete pervert!"

"Who's a pervert? Why don't you tell us what your most perverted thought is?"

"I really want to try doing _that_ on the beach. No! No, I definitely don't want that! You just made me say that with your power!"

"There's no point in denying it to me."

"I'll kill you! I swear I'll kill you eventually!"

"Don't be silly, how do you intend to kill a level five like me?"

"I'll find a way! I'm a magician! I can do anything with enough preparation!"

"Magic? Are you really going to try and stop me with those kinds of cheap tricks?"

Touma backed away. Slowly. The girls were so caught up yelling at each other that they didn't even notice until he was completely gone.

"What the heck was that?" He asked himself when he was finally alone. "Such misfortune."

"Is there a pressing reason you are asking that at this time? Asks Misaka as she tries to determine if you are already too busy to help."

"Huh? Misaka Imouto?" Touma asked. "What are you doing here?"

"Searching for you, responds Misaka as she reveals her purpose."

"Searching for me? Why?" Touma just knew that he was about to be dragged into yet another misfortunate circumstance.

"The Misakas need your help, begs Misaka." She said, immediately confirming his fear.

"What is it?" Touma asked. "What's wrong?"

"The Misaka network is in danger of being exposed to the world, Misaka reports."

"Revealed to the world? How?"

"Blackmail, informs Misaka. The perpetrator has taken several pictures of Misaka's talking together and is threatening to reveal them to the world unless we pay one billion yen, Misaka says."

"One billion yen!?" Touma yelled out. "Where are you going to get that kind of money?"

"It is possible that the city would be willing to pay the money, but the Misaka Network does not want to put their trust in them, Misaka replies."

"So you're going to attack him?"

"No, replies Misaka. This blackmailer has the power to send digitized information instantly from place to place so any attack but one that would take him out instantly would only result in the Misaka Network's existence being exposed Misaka continues."

"What kind of power is that?" Touma asked.

"It appears to be a form of electronic manipulation with a very limited use, Misaka explains. It is only a level two ability, Misaka says to inform you of the information gained from the Bank."

"Alright. So what's the plan?"

"The Misaka network will pretend to have the money in suitcases and pretend to pay him, then you will just have to touch him to prevent him from using his power, explains Misaka. With his power out of commission the Misaka sisters will be able to destroy the information with our power, Misaka concludes."

"I have a feeling it won't go that simply, since I've been having that kind of day, but alright. Let's go."

"Thank you, Misaka says gratefully. Please follow Misaka."

Misaka Imouto led Touma around a few corners until they got to a bus stop that Misaka Imouto had them wait in front of.

"By the way…" Touma said. "Are you still wearing that necklace? Didn't you only need it to tell you apart from Misaka while you didn't have your goggles?"

"…Please don't try and take this away from Misaka, Misaka begs."

"Uh… Okay." Touma said awkwardly. He didn't really understand why but it seemed Misaka Imouto valued that necklace. The two of them sat there waiting for the bus in silence for a little while until Touma said "Is this what Accelerator is busy with? When I ran into him earlier he was going to Anti-Skill headquarters."

"Heh. Heh. Heh. Misaka laughs."

"Huh?"

"Accelerator is currently busy with something else Misaka says as she tries not to fall over laughing."

Touma decided to leave it at that. He probably didn't really want to know the answer.

The lapse in conversation drew Touma's attention to a problem that he hadn't noticed he had. "When will this bus get here anyways?" He asked.

"Ten minutes, estimates Misaka without checking a clock for perfect accuracy."

"Alright! I'll be right back!" Touma told her. He took off in the direction of the nearest convenience store and went to the washroom there. He had been so caught up in day to day activities he hadn't even noticed the need. On his way out he grabbed a premade sandwich and a bottle of water for himself, since he had only eaten that bowl of rice and meat the Anti-Skill member had given him since lunch. Running around and getting into fights had a way of making someone hungry. Then he hurried back to the bus stop.

"Here." He told Misaka Imouto, handing her the candy bar he had bought her while he was getting his meal.

"Thank you very much, says Misaka as she starts to dig in."

The two of them sat there eating in companionable silence for a while until the bus finally came just as Touma was trying to wipe the mustard off of his hands without a napkin. They got on the bus when Touma noticed his problem.

"My wallet!" He yelled out. "What happened to my wallet!?" His entire wallet had completely disappeared from his pocket.

"When was the last time you saw it? Misaka asks the obvious question."

"When I paid for that last bus ride…" Touma's voice trailed off as he realized what could have happened to it. Anything really. He had been thrown around a lot today, so his wallet getting thrown out of his pocket wasn't really that surprising. "Such misfortune."

"Misaka will pay for you, offers Misaka as she doesn't wait for your response." Misaka Imouto dropped in enough payment for two bus tickets and the automatic bus allowed them on. They took a seat in the middle of the bus and waited some more. It was very pleasant for Touma, who had been doing nothing but running around all day, to not have to do anything but sit still.

"Hey, why are you sticking so close to Ikoma!?" A strangely familiar voice yelled from the back of the bus. Touma didn't mean to eavesdrop but since there was no other people talking on the bus it was hard not to hear it.

"What do you mean?" A perfectly calm voice responded. "Am I doing anything unusual?"

"Yes you are. You're sitting so close to Ikoma that you look like lovers! I should be the one- I mean, what's gotten into you!?"

"I… I don't know. This just feels natural."

Something about the conversation made Touma feel like he was forgetting something, but he pushed it out of his mind and said "So how far away is this place?" To Misaka Imouto.

"It should take fifteen minutes by this schedule, reports Misaka."

"Fifteen minutes huh?" Touma echoed. That sounded wonderful. He relaxed onto the surprisingly comfy seats and focused on getting as much rest as possible while he could. "By the way, how's that cat?" He asked.

"Dog is perfectly safe, Misaka replies."

"Heh. So you actually ended up naming him dog huh?"

The two of them passed the rest of the bus ride talking easily like that, until the bus finally pulled up to its destination and the two of them got off of it. The place they had been dropped off in wasn't a _bad_ part of town necessarily, but it also wasn't a place that Touma would recommend hanging out in. There wasn't much of anything here, aside from a few warehouses that were only in use for about half of the year. Anti-Skill only bothered showing up here when the warehouses were being used so for the rest of the year it was a place frequented by people trying to do new things with their powers that their teachers wouldn't let them practice at school. Nobody was going out of their way to hurt other people, but Touma knew it was just a matter of time before an accident happened. Which with his luck, he would be involved in.

"This is the place?" He asked. They were standing in front of an open warehouse.

Misaka Imouto nodded. "Yes, Misaka confirms."

Touma took a step forward but Misaka Imouto grabbed onto his arm and said "Please wait, requests Misaka. Help will be arriving soon, Misaka explains."

Touma stopped walking and before long a car showed up and a blue haired woman wearing a lab coat stepped out of it, along with three other Misaka clones. The blue haired woman looked slightly familiar and she was carrying a briefcase. "Are you two ready to start?" She asked. "Take this." She handed Touma the briefcase.

"What's this?" The briefcase was surprisingly heavy.

"The money. Well, actually it's just a bunch of blank white paper. It's what we're pretending is the money anyways."

"Alright. So I just pretend to give it to him and then grab onto him?"

"Yes. With any luck it will be that simple."

"Please don't say that." Touma sighed.

"Huh?"

"Nothing. Let's just get this over with. Are you guys ready?" He asked the Misaka clones.

"Yes, Misaka confirms." One of them replied back.

Touma and the four Misaka clones entered the empty warehouse and all five of them quickly realized that something about it was strange.

"Is this supposed to be a haunted house?" Touma asked.

The warehouse had been decorated, and not in a fashionable kind of way. It looked, like Touma had said, like a haunted house. All of the windows were covered by black curtains, the only source of light was the candles randomly distributed around the room, fake spider webs were hung up everywhere, there were a lot of fake tombstone, and a creepy song was playing on the speakers. Touma would have been scared if he didn't find the whole thing so ridiculous. There was a simple path set up that guided them through the warehouse.

To Touma's shock two of the Misaka clones grabbed onto his arms and clung to him.

"Wha- what are you doing?"

"Misaka is afraid, Misaka lies in order to take advantage of this opportunity." Misaka Imouto told him.

"Misaka is also afraid, Misaka echoes for the same reason." The other Misaka clone said.

"You just told me it's a lie!" Touma protested.

"WELCOME." An ominous voice came from the speakers. "THIS IS MY KINGDOM. I AM THE LORD OF THE DARK. HAVE YOU BROUGHT WHAT I HAVE REQUESTED?"

"What the hell?" Touma asked. "Is this what they call a delusion of grandeur?"

"DO NOT DARE TO MOCK ME. I SHALL DETERMINE YOUR FATE."

"Yes, yes," Touma patronized him. "Where are you?

"IN THE CENTER. FOLLOW THE PATH."

Touma sighed and continued to follow the path. He had just known something would go wrong. He had been hoping for some amateur but instead he had gotten a crazy person. The two Misaka sisters were still clinging very closely to him but he didn't say anything.

They found the man in the centre of the warehouse, standing in the middle of a circle of candles. In contrast to the theme of his ridiculous decorations, there was a computer right beside him. Touma guessed the information that the man could move without his power was inside it.

"Here's the money." Touma said, hoping to get this over with quickly.

"EXCELLENT."

"Can you not turn off that speaker?" Touma asked. He was having a very hard time taking this idiot seriously. "I'm standing right here."

The man studied him closely. "ARE YOU THE MAN WHO CREATED THESE CLONES?"

"What? No. I'm just a high school student. Why would you think that?"

"DON'T TRY TO FOOL ME. I SEE HOW CLOSELY THEY ARE CLINGING TO YOU. HOW YOU ARE THE ONE TO SUPPLY THEIR NEEDED MONEY. OBVIOUSLY YOU ARE THEIR CREATOR."

"Wait a minute… are you telling me you don't know who made them?"

"I-"

"You just discovered that a group of _internationally banned_ clones exist and you decided to blackmail them… without knowing who made them?"

"WHO MADE THEM DOES NOT MATTER. NO ONE IN THIS WORLD WOULD DARE TO DEFY ME."

"This… really isn't going to end well for you." Touma told him. He shook off the two Misaka's holding onto him and walked over to the man, being careful not to tip over the candles. "Well whatever, here's your money."

"EXCELLENT NOW I- WAIT WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

Touma had handed him the briefcase with his left hand and grabbed onto his arm with his right. "Okay, that's the end of that." He said.

A bolt of electricity hit the computer and destroyed it instantly. The man who was attempting blackmail struggled against Touma's grip but he was weak and Touma held him easily. "WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?" Another bolt of electricity perfectly knocked off the microphone mouthpiece that he was wearing. "No- no wait. You can't do this to me! Please stop!"

"Misaka will now begin the extermination of the threat, Misaka declares."

"Misaka has now selected the most heinous punishment the Misaka Network has been able to construct, Misaka declares."

"Misaka will now begin the punishment, Misaka adds."

Touma started to back away slowly. Then he started to run away. For some reason he felt that he didn't want to be around for this.

"Is it over?" The blue haired woman in a lab coat asked him when he had gotten out of the warehouse.

"Yes."

"Alright. I'll drop you off at your dorm as a thanks. Where do you live?"

Touma sighed. Going back to his dorm sounded good, it sounded _very_ good, but he forced his tired body to shut up and said "Actually, can you take me somewhere else? I have something I have to do."

The car ride was much faster than the bus ride had been, as there was no need for stops or doing anything but heading straight for the destination. Touma was there in no time.

"What is this place?" The woman asked. "Estates are really rare in Academy City."

"Yeah." Touma said. "I guess that's why they stole it. Drop me off a street away, I don't want them noticing your car if something goes wrong right away."

He had come back to the estate even though he had already saved Fukiyose for a very simple reason. To save the rest of the slaves. He had left here without them earlier, but that had been out of necessity not by choice. If he had tried to save all of the slaves right in front of the gathered crowd of all of the magicians that lived here, right after he had given them a reason to hate him in that fight, then he undoubtedly would have failed. He had beaten Edward, of course, but fighting thirty magicians at once was suicide. So he had decided that it would be best to wait until later, when everyone had gotten back to their normal routine.

He tried to formulate a plan in his head. They had no reason to believe he would be coming, unlike when he had come for Fukiyose, so stealth could be an option this time. He could start with the guards at the gate the ones who were-

Touma completely froze in shock at the sight of someone who was standing in front of the guards. For a second he was afraid that she was caught too, but she was actually yelling at one of the guards and trying to get him to listen to her.

"Shutaura?" Touma blurted out.

Time changed to 21:00.

* * *

**Author's Note Continued: **Alright two things. First of all I noticed a lot of you were pointing out how Touma would have saved the slaves. This is completely correct, except that he couldn't have in that situation, and it made much more sense to wait until later and do it then. Secondly you'll notice I introduced Shutaura to the story, a character from the Endymion movie. I was not planning on having her in this story originally (I hadn't even seen the movie when I started this) but I couldn't resist. She's just so cool.


End file.
